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ST. MARK'S RES 




THE HISTORY OF YEI^ICE 



WRITTEN FOR THE HELP OF THE FEW TRAVELLERS WHO STILL 
CARE FOR HER MONUMENTS. 



ly Marking-, or otherwise defacin*;- this book, is strictly proliibited. 
It must be returned or renewed at the exi)iration of two weeks. For 
L-egulations, see inside of first cover. 



PARTS I. AND 11, 



NEW YORK : 

JOHN WILEY & SONS, 

15 AsTOR Place. 

1877. 









S. W. GREEN, 

Printer and Ei.kctrotypkr, 

16 & 18 Jacob Street, 

New York. 



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PREFACE 



• • * 



Great nations write their autobiographies in three 
manuscripts — the book of their deeds, the book of their 
words, and the book of tlieir art. Not one of these 
books can be understood unless we read the two others ; 
but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the 
last. The acts of a nation may be triumphant by its good 
fortune ; and its words mighty by the genius of a few of 
its children': but its art, only by the general gifts and 
common sympathies of the race. 

Again, the policy of a nation may be compelled, and, 
therefore, not indicative of its true character. Its words 
may be false, while yet the race remain unconscious of 
their falsehood ; and no historian can assuredly detect 
the h}^ocrisy. But art is always instinctive ; and the 
honesty or pretence of it are therefore open to the 
day. The Delphic oracle may or may not have been 
spoken by an honest priestess, — we cannot tell by the 
words of it ; a liar may rationally believe them a lie, such 
as he would himself have spoken ; and a true man, with 



iv PREFACE. 

equal reason, may believe tlicm spoken in tnitli. But 
there is no question possible in art : at a glance (wlien 
we have learned to read), we know the religion of An- 
gelico to be sincere, and of Titian, assumed. 

The evidence, therefore, of the third book is the most 
vital to our knowledge of any nation's life ; and the his- 
tory of Yenice is chiefly written in such manuscript. It 
once lay open on the waves, miraculous, like St. Cuth- 
bert's book, — a golden legend on countless leaves : now, 
like Baruch's roll, it is being cut v/ith the penknife, leaf 
by leaf, and consumed in the Are of the most brutish of 
the fiends. What fragments of it may yet be saved in 
blackened scroll, like those withered Cottonian relics in 
our I^ational library, of which so much has been redeemed 
by love and skill, this book will help you, partly, to read. 
Partly, — for I know only myself in part ; but what I tell 
you, so far as it reaches, will be truer than you have 
heard hitherto, because founded on this absolutely faith- 
ful witness, despised by other historians, if not wholly 
unintelligible to them. 

I am obliged to write shortly, being too old now to 
spare time for any thing more than needful work ; and I 
write at speed, careless of afterwards remediable mis- 
takes, of which adverse readers may gather as many as 
they choose : that to wliich such readers ai*e adverse will 
be found truth that can abide any quantity of adversity. 

As I can get my chapters done, they shall be published 
in this form, for such service as they can presently do. 



PREFACE. V 

The entire book will consist of not more than twelve such 
parts, with two of appendices, forming two volumes : if I 
can get what I have to say into six parts, with one appen- 
dix, all the better. 

Two separate little guides, one to the Academy, the 
other to San Giorgio de' Schiavoni, w^ill, I hope, be ready 
w^th the opening numbers of this book, which must 
depend somewhat on their collateral illustration ; and 
what I find likely to be of seiwice to the traveller in my 
old ' Stones of Venice ' is in course of re-publication, with 
further illustration of the complete w^orks of Tintoret. 
But this cannot be ready till the autumn ; and what I 
have said of the mightiest of Venetian masters, in my 
lecture on his relation to Michael Angelo, w411 be enough 
at present to enable the student to complete the range of 
his knowledge to the close of the story of ' St. Mark's 
Kest.' 



ST. MARK'S BEST. 

CHAPTEK I. 

THE BURDEN OF TYKE. 

Go first into tlie Piazzetta, and stand anywhere in the 
shade, where you can well see its two granite pillars. 

Your Murray tells you that they are ' famous,' and that 
the one is " sunnounted by the bronze lion of St. Mark, 
the other by the statue of St. Theodore, the Protector of 
the Kepublic." 

It does not, however, tell you why, or for what the 
pillars are ' famous.' ]^or, in reply to a question which 
might conceivably occur to the curious, why St. Theodore 
should protect the Republic by standing on a crocodile ; 
nor wdiether the " bronze lion of St. Mark " w^as cast by 
Sir Edwin Landseer, — or some more ancient and ignorant 
person ; nor what these rugged corners of limestone rock, 
at the bases of the granite, were perhaps once in the shape 
of. Have you any idea why, for the sake of any such 
things, these pillars were once, or should yet be, more re- 
nowned than the Monument, or the column of the Place 
Yendome, both of which are much bigger ? 

Well, they are famous, first, in memorial of something 
which is better worth remembering than the fire of Lon- 



''I ST. MARK S REST. 

don, or the acliievements of tlie great JN^apoleon. And 
thej are famous, or nsed to be, among artists, because they 
are beautiful columns ; nay, as far as we old artists know, 
tlie most beautiful columns at present extant and erect in 
the conveniently visitable world. 

Each of these causes of their fame I will try in some 
dim degree to set before you. 

I said they were set there in memory of things^ — not of 
the man who did the things. They are to Yenice, in 
fact, what the Kelson column would be to London, if, 
instead of a statue of ISTelson and a coil of rope, on the 
top of it, we had put one of the four Evangelists, and a 
saint, for the praise of the Gospel and of Holiness : — 
trusting the memory of ^Nelson to our own souls. 

However, the memory of the Nelson of Yenice, being 
now seven hundred years old, has more or less faded from 
the heart of Yenice herself, and seldom finds its way into 
the heart of a stranger. Somewhat concerning him, 
though a stranger, you may care to hear, but you must 
hear it in quiet ; so let your boatman take you across to 
San Giorgio Maggiore ; there you can moor your gondola 
under the steps in the shade, and read in peace, looking up 
at the pillars when you like. 

In the year 1117, when the Doge Ordelafo Falier had 
been killed under the walls of Zara, Yenice chose, for his 
successor, Domenico Michiel, Michael of the Lord, ^ Catto- 
lico nomo e audace,' ^'* a catholic and brave man, the serv- 
ant of God and of St. Michael. 

* Marin Sanuto. Vitse Ducum Venetorum, henceforward quoted as 
v., with references to the pages of Muratori's edition. See Appendix, 
Art. 1, which with following appendices will be given ia a separate 
number as soon as there are enough to form one. 



I, THE BURDEN OF TYRE. 3 

Another of Mr. Murray's publications for your general 
assistance (' Sketches from Venetian History ') informs 
you that, at this time, the ambassadors of the King of 
Jenisalem (the second Baldwin) were " awakening the 
pious zeal, and stimulating the cornxUiercial appetite, of 
the Venetians." 

This elegantly balanced sentence is meant to suggest to 
you that the Venetians had as little piety as we have our- 
selves, and were as fond of money — that article being 
the only one wdiich an Englishman could now think of, 
as an object of '^ commercial appetite." 

The facts which take this aspect to the lively cockney, 
are, in reality, that Venice was sincerely pious, and in- 
tensely covetous. But not covetous merely of money. 
She was covetous, first, of fame ; secondly, of kingdom ; 
thirdly, of pillars of marble and granite, such as these that 
you see ; lastly, and quite principally, of the relics of good 
people. Such an ' appetite,' glib-tongued cockney friend, 
is not wholly ' commercial.' 

To the nation in this religiously covetous hunger, Bald- 
win appealed, a captive to the Saracen. The Pope sent 
letters to press his suit, and the Doge Michael called the 
State to council in the church of St. Mark. There he, 
and the Primate of Venice, and her nobles, and such of 
the people as had due entrance with them, by w^ay of be- 
ginning the business, celebrated the Mass of the Holy 
Spirit. Then the Primate read the Pope's letters aloud 
to the assembly; then the Doge made the assembly a 
speech. And there was no opposition party in that parli- 
ament to make opposition speeches ; and there were 
no reports of the speech next morning in any Times 
or Daily Telegraph. And there were no plenipoten- 



4 ST. makk's best. 

tiaries sent to the East, and back again. But the vote 
passed for war. 

The Doge left his son in charge of the State ; and sailed 
for the Holy Land, with forty galleys and twenty-eight 
beaked ships of battle — " ships which were painted with 
div^ers colors," ^ far seen in pleasant splendor. 

Some faded likeness of them, twenty years ago, might 
be seen in the painted sails of the lishing boats which lay 
crowded, in lowly lustre, where the development of civili- 
zation now only brings black steam -tugs,f to bear the 
people of Yenice to the bathing-machines of Lido, cover- 
ing their Ducal Palace with soot, and consuming its sculp- 
tures with sulphurous acid. 

The beaked ships of the Doge Michael had each a hun- 
dred oars, — each oar pulled by two men, not accommo- 
dated with sliding seats, but breathed well for their great 
boat-race between the shores of Greece and Italy,- — whose 
names, alas, with the names of their trainers, are noteless 
in the journals of the barbarous time. 

They beat their way across the waves, nevertheless, j^ 
to the place by the sea-beach in Palestine w^here Dorcas 
worked for the poor, and St. Peter lodged with his name- 
sake tanner. There, showing first but a squadron of a few 
ships, they drew the Saracen fleet out to sea, and so set 
upon them. 

* * The Acts of God, by the Franks.' Afterwards quoted as G. 
(Gesta Dei). Again, see Appendix, Art. 1. 

f The sails may still be seen scattered farther east along the Riva ; 
but the beauty of the scene, which gave some image of the past, was 
in their combination with the Ducal Palace, — not with the new 
French and English Restaurants. 

X Oars, of course, for calm, and adverse winds, only ; bright sails 
full to the helpful breeze. 



I. THE BURDEX OF TYRE. 5 

And the Doge, in liis true Duke's place, first in liis 
beaked ship, led for the Saracen admiral's, struck her, 
and sunk her. And his host of falcons followed to the 
slaughter : and to the prey also, — for the battle was not 
Avithout gratification of the commercial appetite. The 
Yenetians took a number of ships containing precious 
silks, and " a quantity of drugs and pepper." 

After which battle, the Doge went up to Jerusalem, 
there to take further counsel concerning the use of his 
Venetian j)ower ; and, being received there with honor, 
kept his Christmas in the mountain of the Lord. 

In the council of war that followed, debate became stern 
whether to undertake the siege of Tyre or Ascalon. The 
judgments of men being at pause, the matter was given 
to the judgment of God. They put the names of the two 
cities in an urn, on the altar of the Church of the Sepul- 
chre. An orphan child was taken to draw the lots, who, 
putting his hand into the urn, drew out the name of Tyee. 

"Which name you may have heard before, and read per- 
haps words concerning her fall — careless always yjJien the 
fall took place, or wdiose sword smote her. 

She was still a glorious city, still queen of the treasures 
of the sea ; * chiefly renowned for her work in glass and 
in purple ; set iii command of a rich plain, " irrigated with 
plentiful and perfect waters, famous for its sugar-canes ; 
' fortissima,' she herself, upon her rock, double walled 
towards the sea, treble walled to the land ; and, to all 
seeming, unconquerable but by famine." 

* " Passava tuttavia per lapiupopolosae commerciante di Siria." — 
Romanin, * Storia Documentata di Venezia,' Venice, 1853, vol. ii., 
whence I take what else is said in the text ; but see in the Gesta Dei, 
the older Marin Sanuto, lib. iii., pars. vi. cap. xii., and pars. xiv. cap. ii. 



6 ST. mark's rest. 

For their help in this great siege, the Yenetians made 
their conditions. 

That in every city subject to the King of Jerusalem, the 
Yenetians should have a street, a square, a bath, and a 
bakehouse : that is to say, a place to live in, a place to 
meet in, and due command of water and bread, all free of 
tax ; that they should use their own balances, weights, and 
measures (not by any means false ones, you will please 
to observe) ; and that the King of Jerusalem should pay 
annually to the Doge of Yenice, on the Feast of St. Peter 
and St. Paul, three hundred Saracen byzants. 

Such, with due approval of the two Apostles of the 
Gentiles, being the claims of these Gentile mariners 
from the King of the Holy City, the same were accepted 
in these terms : '^ In the name of the Holy and un- 
divided Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, these are the treaties which Baldwin, second King 
of the Latins in Jerusalem, made with St. Mark and 
Dominicus Michael " ; and ratified by the signatuies of — 

GuAEiMOND, Patriarch of Jerusalem ; 

Ebremae, Ai'chbishop of Csesarea ; 

Bernard, Archbishop of Nazareth ; 

AsQuiRiN, Bishop of Bethlehem ; 

GoLDUMUs, Abbot of St. Mary's, in the Yale of Jehosh- 

aphat ; 
AccHARD, Prior of the Temple of the Lord ; 
Gerard, Prior of the Holy Sepulchre ; 
Arnard, Prior of Mount Syon ; and 
Hugo de Pagano, Master of the Soldiers of the Tem- 

j)le. With others many, whose names are in the 

chronicle of Andrea Dandolo. 



I. THE BUKDEX OF TYRE. 7 

And tliereiipon tlie French cnisaders by land, and the 
Venetians by sea, drew line of siege ronnd Tyre. 

You will not expect me here, at St. George's steps, to 
srive account of the various mischief done on each other 
with the dart, the stone, and the fire, by the Christian and 
Saracen, day by day. Both were at last wearied, when 
report came of help to the Tyrians by an army from 
Damascus, and a fleet from Egypt. Upon which news, 
discord arose in the invading camp ; and rumor went 
abroad that the Yenetians would desert their allies, and 
save themselves in their fleet. These reports coming to 
the ears of the Doge, he took (according to tradition) the 
sails from his ships' masts, and the rudders from their 
sterns,^ and brought sails, rudders, and tackle ashore, and 
into the French camp, adding to these, for his pledge, 
" grave words." 

The French knights, in shame of their miscreance, bade 
him refit his ships. The Count of Tripoli and "William 
of Bari were sent to make head against the Damascenes ; 
and the Doge, leaving ships enough to blockade the port, 
sailed himself, with what could be spared, to find the 
Egyptian fleet. He sailed to Alexandria, showed his sails 
along the coast in defiance, and returned. 

Meantime his coin for payment of his mariners was 
spent. lie did not care to depend on remittances. He 

* By doing" this lie left liis fleet helpless before an enemy, for naval 
warfare at this time depended wholly on the fine steering of the ships 
at the moment of onset. But for all ordinary manoeuvres necessary 
for the safety of the fleet in harbor, their oars were enough. Andrea 
Dandolo says he took a plank (" tabula") out of each ship, — a more 
fatal injury. I suspect the truth to have been that he simply un- 
shipped the rudders, and brought them into camp ; a grave speech- 
less symbol, earnest enough, but not costly of useless labor. 



8 ST. mark's kest. 

struck a coinage of leather, with St. Mark's and his own 
shield on it, promising his soldiers that for every leathern 
rag, so signed, at Venice, there should be given a golden 
zecchin. And his word was taken ; and his word was 
kept. 

So the steady siege went on, till the Tyrians lost hope, 
and asked terms of surrender. 

They obtained security of person and property, to the 
indignation of the Christian soldiery, who had expected 
the sack of Tyre. The city Avas divided into three parts, 
of which two were given to the King of Jerusalem, the 
third to the Venetians. 

How Baldwin governed his two thirds, 1 do not know, 
nor what capacity there was in the Tyrians of being gov- 
erned at all. Eut the Venetians, for their third part, ap- 
pointed a ^ hailo ' to do civil justice, and a ' viscount ' to 
answer for military defence ; and appointed magistrates 
under these, who, on entering office, took the following 
oath : — 

" I swear on the holy Gospels of God, that sincerely 
and without fraud I will do right to all men who are 
under the jurisdiction of Venice in the city of Tyre ; and 
to every other who shall be brought before me for judg- 
ment, according to the ancient use and law of the city. 
And so far as I know not, and am left uninformed of 
that, I will act by such rule as shall appear to me just, 
according to the appeal and answer. Farther, I will give 
faithful and honest counsel to the Bailo and the Viscount, 
when I am asked for it / and if they share any secret 
with me, I will keep it ; neither will I procure by fraud, 
good to a friend, nor evil to an enemy." And thus the 
Venetian state planted stable colonies in Asia. 



I. THE BUEDEN OF TYRE. 9 

Thus far Eomanin ; to whom, nevertheless, it does not 
occur to ask what ' establishing colonies in Asia ' meant 
for Yenice. Whether they were in Asia, Africa, or the 
Island of Atlantis, did not at this time greatly matter ; but 
it mattered infinitely that they were colonies living in 
friendly Telations with the Saracen, and that at the very 
same moment arose cause of quite other than friendly re- 
lations, between the Yenetian and the Greek. 

For while the Doge Michael fought for the Christian 
king at Jerusalem, the Christian emperor at Byzantium 
attacked the defenceless states of Yenice, on the main- 
land of Dalmatia, and seized their cities. Whereupon the 
Doge set sail homewards, fell on the Greek islands of the 
Egean, and took the spoil of them ; seized Cephalonia ; 
recovered the lost cities of Dalmatia ; compelled the 
Greek emperor to sue for peace, — gave it, in angry scorn ; 
and set his sails at last for his own Rialto, with the scep- 
tres of Tyre and of Byzantium to lay at the feet of 
Yenice. 

Spoil also he brought, enough, of such commercial kind 
as Yenice valued. These pillars that you look upon, of 
rosy and gray rock ; and the dead bodies of St. Donato 
and St. Isidore. 

He thus returned, in 1126 ; Fate had left him yet four 
years to live. In which, among other homely work, he 
made the beginning for you (oh much civilized friend, 
you will at least praise him in this) of these mighty gaseous 
illuminations by which Yenice provides for your seeing 
her shop-wares by night, and provides against your seeing 
the moon, or stars, or sea. 

For, finding the narrow streets of Yenice dark, and 
opportune for robbers, he ordered that at the heads of 



10 ST. maek's rest. 

them there should be set little tabernacles for images of 
the saints, and before each a light kept burning. Thus 
he commands, — not as thinking that the saints themselves 
had need of candles, but that they would gladly grant to 
poor mortals in danger, material no less than heavenly 
light. 

And having in this pretty and lowly beneficence ended 
what work he had to do in this world, feeling his strength 
fading, he laid down sword and ducal robe together ; and 
became a monk, in this island of St. George, at the shore 
of which you are reading : but the old monastery on it 
which sheltered him was destroyed long ago, that this 
stately Palladian portico might be built, to delight Mr. 
Eustace on his classical tour, — and other such men of re- 
nown, — and persons of excellent taste, like yourself. 

And there he died, and was buried ; and there he lies, 
virtually tombless : the place of his grave you find by 
going down the steps on your right hand behind the altar, 
leading into what was yet a monastery before the last 
Italian revolution, but is now a finally deserted loneli- 
ness. 

Over his grave there is a heap of frightful modern up- 
holsterer's work, — Longhena's ; his first tomb (of which 
you may see some probable likeness in those at the side of 
St. John and St. Paul) being removed as too modest and 
timeworn for the vulgar Venetian of the seventeenth 
century ; and this, that you see, put up to please the Lord 
Mayor and the beadles. 

The old inscription was copied on the rotten black slate 
which is breaking away in thin flakes, dimmed by dusty 
salt. The beginning of it yet remains : " Here lies the 
Terror of the Greeks." Eead also the last lines : 



I. THE BUKDEN OF TYKE. 11 

"Whosoever thou art, who comest to behold this 

TOMB OF HIS, bow THYSELF DOWX BEFORE GoD, BECAUSE OF 
HIM." 

Of these tilings, then, the two pillars before you are 
' famous ' in memorial. What in themselves they possess 
deserving honor, we will next try to discern. But you 
must row a little nearer to the pillars, so as to see them 
clearly. 



CHAPTER 11. 

LATRATOR ANUBIS. 

1 SAID these pillars were the most beautiful known to 
me ; but you must understand this saying to be of the 
whole pillar — group of base, shaft, and capital — not only 
of their shafts. 

You know so much of architecture, perhaps, as that an 
' order ' of it is the system, connecting a shaft with its 
capital and cornice. And you can surely feel so much of 
architecture, as that, if you took the heads off these pil- 
lars, and set the granite shafts simply upright on the pave- 
ment, they would perhaps remind you of ninepins, or roll- 
ing-pins, but would in no wise contribute either to respect- 
ful memory of the Doge Michael, or to the beauty of the 
Piazzetta. 

Their beauty, which has been so long instinctively felt 
by artists, consists then first in the proportion, and then 
in the propriety of their several parts. Do not confuse 
proportion with propriety. An elephant is as properly 
made as a stag ; but he is not so gracefully projDortioned. 
In fine architecture, and all other fine arts, grace and 
propriety meet. 

I will take the fitness first. You see that both these 
pillars have wide bases of successive steps. * You can 
feel that these would be ' improper ' round the pillars of 

* Restored, — but they always must have had them, in some such 
proportion. 



II. LATRATOR ANUBIS. 13 

an arcade in which people walked, because they would be 
in the way. But they are proper here, because they tell 
us the pillar is to be isolated, and that it is a monument of 
importance. Look from these shafts to the arcade of the 
Ducal Palace. Its pillars have been found fault with for 
wanting bases. But they wxre meant to be walked beside 
without stumbling. 

Next, you see the tops of the capitals of the great pil- 
lars spread wide, into flat tables. You can feel, sm-ely, 
that these are entirely ' j)^oper,' to afford room for the 
statues they are to receive, and that the edges, which bear 
no weight, may ' properly ' extend widely. But suppose 
a weight of superincumbent wall were to be laid on these 
pillars ? The extent of capital which is now graceful, 
would then be weak and ridiculous. 

Thus far of propriety, w^liose simj)le laws are soon satis- 
fied : next, of proportion. 

You see that one of the shafts — the St. Theodore's — 
is much more slender than the other. 

One general law of proportion is that a slender shaft 
should have a slender capital, and a ponderous shaft, a 
ponderous one. 

But had this law been here followed, the companion j)il- 
lars w^ould have instantly become ill-matched. The eye 
would have discerned in a moment the fat pillar and the 
lean. They would never have become the fraternal pil- 
lars — ' the two ' of the Piazzetta. 

With subtle, scarcely at first traceable, care, the designer 
varied the curves and weight of his capitals ; and gave 
the massive head to the slender shaft, and the slender 
capital to the massive shaft. And thus they stand in 
symmetry, and uncontending equity. 



14: ST. mark's rest. 

Next, for the form of these capitals themselves, and the 
date of them. 

You will find in the guide-books that though the shafts 
were brought home by the Doge in 1126, no one could 
be found able to set them up, until the year llTl, when 
a certain Lombai'd, called Nicholas of the Barterers, raised 
them, and for reward of such engineering skill, bar- 
gained that lie might keep tables for forbidden games 
of chance between the shafts. Whereupon the Senate 
ordered that executions should also take place between 
them. 

You read, and smile, and pass on with a dim sense of 
having heard something like a good story. 

Yes ; of which I will pray you to remark, that at that 
uncivilized time, games of chance were forbidden in 
Venice, and that in these modern civilized times they are 
not forbidden ; and one, that of the lottery, even pro- 
moted by the Government^ as gainful : and that perhaps 
the Yenetian people might find itself more prosperous on 
the whole by obeying that law of their fathers, ^^ and 
ordering that no lottery should be drawn, except in a place 
where somebody had been hanged, f But the curious 
thing is that wdiile this pretty story is never forgotten, 
about the raising of the pillars, nothing is ever so much as 
questioned about who put their tops and bases to them ! 
— nothing about the resolution that lion or saint should 
stand to preach on them, — nothing about the Saint's ser- 

* Have you ever read the ' Fortunes of Nigel ' with attention to the 
moral of it ? 

f It orders now that the drawing should be at the foot of St. Mark's 
Campanile ; and, weekly, the mob of Venice, gathered for the event, 
fills the marble porches with its anxious murmur. 



II. LATRATOR AXUBIS. 15 

mon, or tlie Lion's ; nor enoiigli, even, concerning the 
name or occupation of IS^icliolas the Barterer, to lead the 
pensive traveller into a profitable observance of the ap- 
pointment of Fate, that in this Tyre of the West, the city 
of merchants, her monnments of triumph over the Tjre of 
the East should forever stand signed by a tradition re- 
cording the stern judgment of her youth against the gam- 
bler's lust, which was the passion of her old age. 

But now of the capitals themselves. If you are the 
least interested in architecture, should it not be of some 
importance to you to note the style of them ? Twelfth 
century capitals, as fresh as when they came from the 
chisel, are not to be seen every day, or everywhere — 
much less capitals like these, a fathom or so broad and 
high ! And if you know the architecture of England and 
France in the twelfth century, you will find these capitals 
still more interesting from their extreme difference in 
manner, ^ot the least like our clumps and humps and 
cushions, are they ? For these are living Greek work, 
still ; not savage ISTorman or clmnsy Northumbrian, these ; 
but of pure Corinthian race ; yet, with Yenetian practical- 
ness of mind, solidified from the rich clusters of light leaf- 
age which were their ancient form. You must find time 
for a little practical cutting of capitals yourself, before 
you will discern the beauty of these. There is nothing 
like a little work with the fingers for teaching the eyes. 

As you go home to lunch, therefore, buy a pound of 
Gruyere cheese, or of any other eqiially tough and bad, 
with as few holes in it as may be. And out of this 
pound of cheese, at lunch, cut a solid cube as neatly as 
you can. 

l!^ow all treatment of capitals depends primarily on the 



16 ST. makk's rest. 

way in which a cube of stone, like this of cheese, is left 
by the carver square at the top, to carry the wall, and cut 
round at the bottom to tit its circular pillar. Proceed 
therefore to cut your cube so that it may fit a round pillar 
of cheese at the bottom, such as is extracted, for tasting, 
by magnanimous cheesemongers, for customers worth their 
while. Your first natural proceeding will of course be to 
cut off four corners ; so making an octagon at the bottom, 
which is a good part of the way to a circle, l^ow if you 
cut oif those corners with rather a long, sweeping cut, as 
if you were cutting a pencil, you will see that already you 
have got very near the shape of the Piazzetta capitals. 
But you will come still nearer, if you make each of these 
simple corner-cuts into two narrower ones, thus bringing 
the lower portion of your bit of cheese into a twelve-sided 
figure. And you will see that each of these double-cut 
angles now has taken more or less the shape of a leaf, 
with its central rib at the angle. And if, further, with 
such sculpturesque and graphic talent as may be in you, 
you scratch out the real shape of a leaf at the edge of the 
cuts and run furrows from its outer lobes to the middle, — 
behold, you have your Piazzetta capital. All hit have it, 
I should say ; only this ^ all but ' is nearly all the good of 
it, which comes of the exceeding fineness with which the 
simple curves are drawn, and reconciled. 

Nevertheless, you will have learned, if sagacious in such 
matters, by this quarter of an hour's carving, so much of 
architectural art as will enable you to discern, and to en- 
joy the treatment of, all the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
tury capitals in Venice, which, without exception, when 
of native cuttmg, are concave bells like this, with either a 
springing leaf, or a bending boss of stone which would be- 



II. LATEATOR ANUBIS. 17 

come a leaf if it were furrowed, at the angles. But the 
fourteenth century brings a change. 

Before I tell you what took place in the fourteenth cen- 
tury, you must cut yourself another cube of Gruyere 
cheese. You see that in the one you have made a capital 
of already, a good weight of cheese out of the cube has 
been cut away in tapering down those long-leaf corners. 
Suppose you try now to make a capital of it without cut- 
ting away so much cheese. If you begin half way down 
the side, with a shorter but more curved cut, you may re- 
duce the base to the same form, and — supposing you are 
working in marble instead of cheese — you have not only 
much less trouble, but you keep a much more solid block 
of stone to bear superincumbent weight. 

'Now you may go back to the Piazzetta, and, thence 
proceeding, so as to get well in front of the Ducal Palace, 
look first to the Greek shaft capitals, and then to those of 
the Ducal Palace upper arcade. You will recognize, 
especially in those nearest the Ponte della Paglia (at 
least, if you have an eye in your head), the shape of your 
second block of Gruyere, — decorated, it is true, in mani- 
fold ways, but essentially shaped like your most cheaply 
cut block of cheese. Modern architects, in imitating 
these capitals, can reach as far as — imitating your Gruyere. 
!Not being able to decorate the block when they have 
got it, they declare that decoration is " a superficial merit." 

Yes, — very superficial. Eyelashes and eyebrows — lips 
and nostrils — chin-dimples and curling hair, are all very 
superficial things, wherewith Heaven decorates the human 
skull ; making the maid's face of it, or the knight's, 
l^evertheless, what I want you to notice now, is but the 
fomi of the block of Istrian stone, usually with a spiral, 



18 ST. mark's rest. 

more or less elaborate, on each of its projecting angles. 
For there is infinitude of history in that solid angle, pre- 
vailing over the light Greek leaf. That is related to our 
humps and clumps at Durham and Winchester. Here is, 
indeed, I^orman temper, prev^ailing over Byzantine ; and 
it means, — the outcome of that quarrel of Michiel with 
the Greek Emperor. It means — western for eastern life, 
in the mind of Yenice. It means her fellowship with the 
western chivalry ; her triumph in the Crusades, — triumph 
over her own foster nurse, Byzantium. 

"Which significances of it, and many others with them, 
if we would follow, we must leave our stone-cutting for a 
little while, and map out the chart of Venetian history 
from its beginning into such masses as we may remember 
without confusion. 

But, since this will take time, and we cannot quite tell 
how long it may be before we get back to the twelfth 
century again, and to our Piazzetta shafts, let me complete 
what I can tell you of these at once. 

In the first place, the Lion of St. Mark is a splendid 
piece of eleventh or twelfth century bronze. I know that 
by the style of him ; but have never foimd out where lie 
came from.* I may now chance on it, however, at any 
moment in other cpests. Eleventh or twelfth century, 
the Lion — fifteenth, or later, his wings ; very delicate in 
feather-workmanship, but with little lift or strike in them ; 

* "He"— tlie actual piece of forged metal, I mean. (See Appendix 
II, for account of its recent botcliings.) Your modern JEnglisli ex- 
plainers of liim liave never lieard, I observe, of any such person as an 
' Evangelist/ or of any Christian symbol of such a being ! See page 
43 of Mr. Adams' * Venice Past and Present ' (Edinburgh and New 
York, 1852). 



II. LATRATOR ANUBIS. 19 

decorative mainly. Witliout doubt liis first wings were 
thin sheets of beaten bronze, shred into plumage ; far 
wider in their sweep than these.f 

The statue of St. Theodore, whatever its age, is wholly 
without merit. I can't make it out myself, nor find 
record of it : in a stonemason's yard, I should have passed 
it as modern. But this merit of the statue is here of little 
consequence, — the poAver of it being wholly in its meaning. 

St. Theodore represents the power of the Spirit of God 
in all noble and useful animal life, conquering what is 
venomous, useless, or in decay : he differs from St. George 
in contending with material evil, instead of with sinfnl 
passion : the crocodile on which he stands is the Dragon- 
of Egypt ; slime-begotten of old, worshipped in its malig- 
nant power, for a God. St. Theodore's martyrdom was 
for breaking such idols ; and with beautiful instinct Yen- 
ice took him in her earliest days for her protector and 
standard-bearer, representing the heavenly life of Christ 
in men, prevailing over chaos and the deep. 

With far more than instinct, — with solemn recognition, 
and prayerful vow, she took him in the pride of her 
chivalry, in mid-thirteenth century, for the master of that 
chivalry in their gentleness of home ministries. The 
' Mariegola ' (Mother-Law) of the school of St. Theodore, 
by kind fate yet preserved to us, contains the legend they 
believed, in its completeness, and their vow of service and 
companionship in all its terms. 

f I am a little proud of this guess, for before correcting tliis sen- 
tence in type, I found the sharp old wings represented faithfully in 
the woodcut of Venice in 1480, in the Correr Museum. Durer, in 
1500, draws the present wings ; so that we get their date fixed Tt-i'-hiu 
twenty years. 



20 



ST. MARK'S REST. 



Either of which, if you care to understand, — several 
other matters and writings must be understood first ; and, 
among others, a pretty piece of our own much boasted, — 
how little obeyed, — Mother-Law, sung still by statute in 
our churches at least once in the month ; the eighty-sixth 
Psalm. " Her foundations are in the holy Mountains." 
I hope you can go on with it by heart, or at least have your 
Bible in your portmanteau. In the remote possibility that 
you may have thought its carriage unnecessarily expensive, 
here is the Latin psalm, with its modern Italian-Catholic '^* 
translation ; w^atery enough, this last, but a clear and 
wholesome, though little vapid, dilution and diffusion of its 
text, — making much intelligible to the Protestant reader, 
which his ' private judgment ' might occasionally have been 
at fault in. 



Pundamenta eius in mon- 
tibus Sanctis : diligit Dom- 
inus portas Sion super 
omnia tabernacula lacob. 

Gloriosa dicta sunt de te, 
civitas Dei. 

"^"^^mor ero Paliab et Ba- 
bylonis, scientium me. 

Ecce alienigense, et Ty- 
rus, et populus ^thiopum 
hi fuerunt illic. 



Gerusalemme e fabbricata 
sopra i santi monti : Iddio ne 
prende piu cura, e 1' ama piu clie 
tufcti gli altri luoglii clie dal suo 
popolo sono abitati. 

Quante cose tutte piene di 
lode sono state dette di voi, citta 
di Dio ! 

Non lascero nell' oblivione ne 
r Egitto ne Babilonia, dacche 
que' popoli mi avranno ricono- 
sciuto per loro Dio. 

Quanti popoli stranieri, Tiri, 
Etiopi, siuo a quel punto miei 
nemici, verranno a prestarmi i 
loro omaggi. 



* From the ' Uffizio della B. V. Maria, Italiano e Latino, per tutti i 
tempi deir anno, del Padre G. Croiset,' a well printed and most ser- 
viceable little duodecimo volume, for any one wishing to know some- 
what of Roman Catholic offices. Published in Milan and Venice, 



II. LATRATOR ANUBIS. 



21 



Numquid Sioii dicet : 
Homo et homo natus est in 
ea, et ipse fundavit eam 
Altissimus ? 

Dominus narrabit in 
scriptnris populornm et 
principiim : lionnn qui f u- 
erunt in ea. 

Siciit loetantium omnium 
liabitatio est in te. 



Ognuno dira allora : Vedete 
come questa citta si e popolata ! 
r Altissimo V ha fondata o vuole 
metterla in fiore. 

Egli percio e 1' unico clie co- 
nosca il numero del popolo o de' 
grandi clie ne sono gli abitanti. 



Non vi e vera felicita, se non 
per colore clie vi haune 1' abita- 
zione. 



Eeading tlien tlie psalm in these words, you have it as 
the Western Christians sang it ever since St. Jerome wrote 
it into such interpretation for them ; and you must try 
to yeel it as these "Western Christians of Yenice felt it, 
having now their own street in the holy city, and their 
covenant with the Prior of Mount Syon, and of the Tem- 
ple of the Lord : they themselves ha\dng struck down 
Tyre with their own swords, taken to themselves her 
power, and now reading, as of themselves, the encom- 
passing benediction of the prophecy for all Gentile 
nations, " Ecce alienigenge — et Tyrus." A notable piece 
of Scripture for them, to be dwelt on, in every word of it, 
with all liumility of faith. 

What then is the meaning of the two verses just pre- 
ceding these ? — 

'^ Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou City of God. 
I will make mention of Kahab and Babylon, with them 
that know me." 

If you like to see a curious mistake at least of one Prot- 
estant's ^ private judgment' of this verse, you must look 



22 ST. mark's rest. 

at my reference to it in Fors Clavigera of April, 1876, p. 
110, with its correction by Mr. Gordon, in Fors for June, 
18T6, pp. 178-203, all containing variously useful notes 
on these verses; of which the gist is, however, that 
the ' Rahab ' of tlie Latin text is the Egyptian ^ Dragon,' 
the crocodile, signifying in myth, which has now been 
three thousand years continuous in human mind, the total 
power of the crocodile-god of Egypt, couchant on his 
slime, bom of it, mistakable for it, — his gray length of 
unintelligible scales, fissured and wrinkled like dry clay, 
itself but, as it were, a shelf or shoal of coagulated, malig- 
nant earth. He and his company, the deities born of the 
earth — beast headed, — with only animal cries for voices : — 

" Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis 
Contra Neptunum ct Venerem, contraque Minervam." 

This is St. Theodore's Dragon-enemy — Egypt, and her 
captivity ; bondage of the earth, literally to the Israelite, 
in making bricks of it, the first condition of form for the 
God : in sterner than mere literal truth, the captivity of 
the spirit of man, wdiether to earth or to its creatures. 

And St. Theodore's victory is making the earth his 
pedestal, instead of his adversary ; he is the power of gen- 
tle and rational life, reigning over the wild creatures and 
senseless forces of the world. The Latrator Anubis — most 
senseless and crael of the guardians of hell — becoming, by 
human mercy, the faithfullest of creature-friends to man. 

Do you think all this work useless in your Venetian 
guide ? There is not a picture, — not a legend, — scarcely a 
column or an ornament, in the art of Venice or of Italy, 
which, by this piece of work, well done, will not become 
more precious to you. Have you ever, for instance, noticed 



II. LATKATOR ANUBIS. 23 

how the bajing of Cerberus is stopped, in the sixth canto 
of Dante, — 

" II diica mio 
Prese la terra ; et con piene le pugno 
La gitto dentro alle bramose canne," 

(To the three^ therefore phiral.) It is one of the innu- 
merable subtleties which mark Dante's perfect knowledge 
— inconceivable except as a form of inspiration — of the 
inner meaning of every myth, whether of classic or Chris- 
tian theology, known in his day. 

Of the relation of the dog, horse, and eagle to the chiv- 
alry of Europe, you will iind, if you care to read, more 
noted, in relation to part of the legend of St. Theodore, 
in the Fors of March, this year ; the rest of his legend, 
with what is notablest in his ^ Mariegola,' I will tell you 
when we come to examine Carpaccio's canonized birds and 
beasts ; of which, to refresh you after this piece of hard 
ecclesiastical reading (for I can't tell you about the bases 
of the pillars to-day. We must get into another humor to 
see these), you may see within five minutes' walk, three 
together, in the little chapel of St. George of the Schia- 
voni: St. George's 'Porphyrio,' the bird of chastity, with 
the bent spray of sacred verv^ain in its beak, at the foot of 
the steps on which St. George is baptizing the princess ; 
St. Jerome's lion, being introduced to the monasteiy (with 
resultant effect on the minds of the brethren) ; and St. 
Jerome's dog, watching his master translating the Bible 
with highest comj^lacency of approval. 

And of St. Theodore himself you may be glad to know 
that he was a very historical and substantial saint as late 
as the fifteenth century, for in the Inventory of the goods 
and chattels of his scuola, made by order of its master 



24 ST. mark's rest. 

(Gastoldo), and the companions, in the year 1450, the first 
article is the body of St. Tlieodore, with the bed it lies on, 
covered by a coverlid of " pano di grano di seta, brocado 
de oro iino." So late as the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
tmy (certified by the inventario fatto a di XXX. de 
Novembrio MCCCCL. per. Sr nanni di piero de la 
colona, Gastoldo, e snoi campagni, de tiitte reliquie e 
arnesi e beni, se trova in questa hora presente in la nostra 
scuola), here lay this treasure, dear to the commercial 
heart of Yenice. 

Oh, good reader, who hast ceased to count the Dead 
bones of men for thy treasure, hast thou then thy Dead 
laid up in the hands of the Living God ? 



CHAPTER III. 

ST. JAMES OF THE DEEP STREAM. 

Twice one is two, and twice two is four ; but twice one 
is not three, and twice two is not six, whatever Sliylock 
may wish, or say, in the matter. In wdiolesome memory of 
which arithmetical, and (probably) eternal, fact, and in 
loyal defiance of Sliylock and his knife, I write down for 
you these figures, large and plain : 

1. 2. 4. 

Also in this swiftly progressive ratio, the figures may 
express what modern philosojjhy considers the rate of pro- 
gress of Yenice, from her days of religion, and golden 
ducats, to her days of infidelity, and paper notes. 

Read them backwards, then, sublime modern philoso- 
pher ; and they w^ill give you the date of the birth of that 
foolish Yenice of old time, on her narrow island. 

4. 2. 1. 

In that year, and on the very day — (little foolish Yenice 
used to say, when she was a very child), — in wdiich, once 
upon a time, the world was made ; and, once upon another 
time — the Ave Maria first said, — the first stone of Yenice 
was laid on the sea sand, in the name of St. James the 
fisher. 

I think you had better go and see with your own ej^es, 
— tread with your own foot, — the spot of her nativity : so 



26 ST. mark's rest. 

much of a spring day as the task will take, cannot often 
be more profitably spent, nor more affectionately towards 
God and man, if indeed you love either of them. 

So, from the Grand Hotel, — or the Swiss Pension — or 
the duplicate Danieli with the drawbridge, — or wherever 
else among the palaces of resuscitated Venice you abide, 
congratulatory modern ambassador to the Venetian Sen- 
ate, — please, to-day, walk through the Merceria, and 
through the Square of St. Bartholomew, where is the little 
octagon turret-chapel in the centre, for sale of news : and 
cross the E-ialto — not in the middle of it, but on the right 
hand side, crossing from St. Mark's. You will probably 
find it very dirty, — it may be, indecently dirty, — that is 
inodern progress, and Mr. Buckle's civilization ; rejoice in 
it with a thankful heart, and stay in it placidly, after cross- 
ing the height of the bridge, when you come down just on 
a level with the capitals of the first story of the black and 
white, all but ruined. Palace of the Camerlenghi ; Trea- 
surers of Venice, built for them when she began to feel 
anxious about her accounts. ' Black and white,' I call it, 
because the dark lichens of age are yet on its marble — or, 
at least, were, in the winter of '76-77 ; it may be, even 
before these pages get printed, it will be scraped and re- 
gilt — or pulled down, to make a railroad station at the 
Pi alto. 

Here standing, if with good eyes, or a good opera glass, 
you look back, up to the highest story of the blank and 
ugly building on the side of the canal you have just crossed 
from, — ^you will see between two of its higher windows, 
the remains of a fresco of a female figure. It is, so far as 
I know, the last vestige of the noble fresco painting of 
Venice on her outside walls ; — Giorgione's, — no less, — 



III. ST. JAMES OF THE DEEP STREAM. 27 

when Titian and lie were liouse-painters, — the Sea-Queen 
so ranking them, for her pomp, in her proud days. Of 
this, and of the black and white palace, we w^ill talk 
another day. I only asked you to look at the fresco just 
now, because therein is seen the end of my Venice, — the 
Yenice I have to tell you of. Yours, of the Grand Hotels 
and the Peninsular steamers, you may write the history of, 
for 3'Ourself. 

Therein, — as it fades away — ends the Yenice of St. 
Mark's Rest. But where she was born, you may now go 
quite down the steps to see. Down, and through among 
the fruit-stalls into the little square on the right ; then 
turning back, the low^ portico is in front of you — not of 
the ancient chm'ch indeed, but of a fifteenth century one 
— variously translated, in succeeding times, into such small 
picturesqueness of stage effect as it yet possesses ; escap- 
ing, by God's grace, however, the fire which destroyed all 
the other buildings of ancient Yenice, round her Hialto 
square, in 1513." 

Some hundred or hundred and fifty years before that, 
Yenice had begun to suspect the bodies of saints to be a 
poor property ; carrion, in fact, — and not even exchange- 
able carrion. Living flesh might be bought instead, — per- 
haps of prettier aspect. So, as I said, for a hundred years 
or so, she had brought home no relics, — but set her mind 
on trade-profits, and other practical matters ; tending to 
the achievement of wealth, and its comforts, and dignities. 
The curious result being, that at that particular moment, 
when the fire devom'ed her merchants' square, centre of the 

* Many clironicles speak of it as burned ; but the autlioritative in- 
scription of 1601 speaks of it as 'consumed bj age,' and is therefore 
conclusive on this point. 



28 ST. mark's rest. 

then mercantile world — she happened to have no money in 
her pocket to build it again with 1 

Nor were any of her old methods of business again to 
be resorted to. Her soldiers were now foreign mercena- 
ries, and had to be paid before they would fight ; and 
prayers, she liad found out long before our English 
wiseacre apothecaries' a]3prentices, were of no use to get 
either money, or new houses w^ith, at a pinch like this. 
And there was really nothing for it but doing the thing 
cheap, — since it had to be done. Fra Giocondo of Yerona 
offered her a fair design ; but the city could not afford 
it. Had to take Scarpagnino's make-shift instead; and 
with his help, and Sansovino's, between 1520 and 1550, 
she just managed to botch up — what you see surround the 
square, of architectural stateliness for her mercantile home. 
Discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, the main cause of 
these sorrowful circumstances of hers, — ^^observe sagacious 
historians. 

At all events, I have no doubt the walls were painted 
red, with some medallions, or other cheap decoration, 
imder the cornices, enough to make the little square look 
comfortable. Whitewashed and squalid now — it may be 
left, for this time, without more note of it, as we turn to 
the little church."^ 

Your Murray tells you it w^as built "in its present 
form" in 1194, and " rebuilt in 1531, but precisely in the 
old form," and that it '• has a fine brick campanile." The 
fine brick campanile, visible, if you look behind you, on 



* Do not, if you will trust me, at this time let your guide take you to 
look at the Gobbo di Rialto, or otherwise interfere with your immediate 
business. 



III. ST. JAMES OF THE DEEP STREAM. 29 

the other side of the street, belongs to the church of St. 
John Elemosinario. And the statement that the church 
was '' rebuilt in precisely the old fomi" must also be re- 
ceived with allowances. For the " campanile" here, is in 
the most orthodox English Jacobite style of the seventeenth 
century, the portico is Yenetian fifteenth, the walls are 
in no style at all, and the little Madonna inserted in 
the middle of them is an exquisitely finished piece of the 
finest work of 1320 to 1350. 

And, alas, the church is not only quite other in form, 
but even other in place, than it was in the fifth century, 
having been moved like a bale of goods, and with ap- 
parently as little difiiculty as scruple, in 1322, on a report 
of the Salt Commissioners about the crowding of shops 
round it. And, in sum, of particulars of authentically 
certified vicissitudes, the little church has gone through 
these following — ^liow many more than these, one cannot 
say — but these at least (see Appendix III.) : 

I. Founded traditionally in 421 (serious doubts whether 
on Friday or Saturday, involving others about the year 
itself). The tradition is all we need care for. 

II. Rebuilt, and adorned with Greek mosaic work by 
the Doge Domenico Selvo, in 1073 ; the Doge having 
married a Greek wife, and liking pretty things. Of this 
husband and wife you shall hear more, anon. 

III. Retouched, and made bright again, getting also 
its due share of the spoil of Byzantium sent home by 
Henry Dandolo, 1174. 

lY. Dressed up again, and moved out of the buyers' 
and sellers' way, in 1322. 

Y. ^ Instaurated ' into a more splendid church (dicto 
templo in splendidiorem ecclesiam instaurato) by the 



30 ST. ^[Ark's rest. 

elected plebaniis, Natalis Eegia, desirous of having the 
cJiurch devoted to his honor instead of St. James's, 1531. 

yi. Lifted np (and most likely therefore first much 
pulled down), to keep the water from coming into it, in 
ICOl, when the double arched campanile was built, and 
the thing finally patched together in the present form. 
Doubtless, soon, by farther ^ progresso ' to become a pro- 
vision, or, perhaps, a petroleum-store, Venice having no 
more need of temples ; and being, as far as I can observe, 
ashamed of having so many, overshadowing her buyers 
and sellers. Better rend the veils in twain forever, if 
convenient storeshops may be formed inside. 

These, then, being authentic epochs of change, you 
may decipher at ease the writing of each of them, — what 
is left of it. The campanile with the ngly head in the 
centre of it is your final Art result, 1601. The portico in 
front of yon is ITatalis Regia's ' instauration ' of the 
church as it stood after 1322, retaining the wooden sim- 
plicities of bracket above the pillars of the early loggia ; 
the Madonna, as I said, is a piece of the 1320 to 1350 
Avork ; and of earlier is no vestige here. But if you will 
walk twenty steps round the church, at the back of it, on 
the low gable, you will see an inscription in firmly graven 
long Roman letters, under a cross, similarly inscribed. 

That is a vestige of the eleventh century church ; nay, 
more than vestige, the Yoice of it — Sibylline, — left when 
its body had died. 

Which I will ask you to hear, in a little while. But 
first you shall see also a few of the true stones of the 
older Temple. Enter it now ; and reverently ; for 
though at first, amidst wretched whitewash and stucco, 
you will scarcely see the true marble, those six pillars 



III. ST. JAMES OF THE DEEP STREAM. 31 

and their capitals are yet actual remnants and material 
marble of the venerable church ; j^robably once extend- 
ing into more arches in the nave ; but this transept ceil- 
ing of wagon vault, with the pillars that carry it, is true 
remnant of a mediaeval church, and, in all likelihood, true 
image of the earliest of all — of the first standard of 
Yenice, planted, under which to abide; the Cross, en- 
graven on the sands thus in relief, with two little pieces 
of Koman vaulting, set cross wise ; — your modern engi- 
neers will soon make as large, in portable brickwork, for 
London drains, admirable, w^orshipful, for the salvation of 
London mankind : — here artlessly rounded, and with 
small cupola above the crossing. 

Thus she set her sign upon the shore ; some knot of 
gelatinous seaweed there checking the current of the 
' Deep Stream,' which sweeps round, as you see, in that 
sigma of canal, as the Wharfe round the shingly bank of 
Bolton Abbey, — a notablest Crook of Lune, this ; and 
Castrum, here, on sands that will abide. 

It is strange how seldom rivers have been named from 
their depth. Mostly they take at once some dear, com- 
panionable name, and become gods, or at least living 
creatures, to their refreshed people ; if not thus Pagan- 
named, they are noted by their color, or their purity, — 
AViiite Kiver, Black Hiver, Eio Yerde, Aqua Dolce, 
Fiume di Latte ; but scarcely ever, * Deep Biver.' 

And this Yenetian slow^-pacing water, not so much as 
a river, or any thing like one ; but a rivulet, ^ fiumicello,' 
only, rising in those low mounds of volcanic hill to the 
west. "'Rialto,' 'Bialtum,' ^Pr(?altum"' (another idea 
getting confused with tlie first), " dal fiumicello di egual 
nome che, scendendo dei colli Euganei gettavasi nel 



32 ST. makk's rest. 

Brenta, con esso scorrendo lungo quelle isole dette ap- 
piinto Realtine.""^ The serpentine depth, consistent 
always among consistent shallow, being here vital ; and 
the conception of it partly mingled with that of the 
j)ower of the open sea — the infinite ' Altum ;' sought by 
the sacred w^ater, as in the dream of Eneas, '' lacu fluvius 
se condidit alto." Hence the united word takes, in de- 
clining Latin, the shorter form, 'Risi\tu?n^ — properly, in 
the scholarship of the State-documents, ' Rivoalti^s.' So 
also, throughout Yenice, the Latin Rivus softens into 
Hio ; the Latin Ripa into Riva, in the time when you 
had the running water — not ^ canals,' but running brooks 
of sea, — ^ lympha f ugax,' — trembling in eddies, between, 
not quays, but banks of pasture land ; soft ' campi,' of 
which, in St. Margaret's field, I have but this autumn 
seen the last w^orn vestige trodden away ; and yesterday, 
Feb. 26th, in the morning, a little tree that was pleasant 
to me taken up from before the door, because it had 
heaved the pavement an inch or two out of square ; also 
beside the Academy, a little overhanging momentary 
shade of boughs hewn away, ' to make the street " bello," ' 
said the axe-bearer. ' What,' I asked, ' will it be prettier 
in summer w^ithout its trees ? ' ' I^on x'e bello il verde,' 
■he answered.f True oracle, though he knew not what 

* Romanin. 

f I observe tlie good people of Edinburgh have the same taste ; aud 
rejoice proudly at having got an asphalt esplanade at the end of 
Prince's Street, instead of cabbage-sellers. Alas ! my Scottish friends ; 
all that Prince's Street of yours has not so much beauty in it as a 
single cabbage-stalk, if you had eyes in your heads, — rather the ex- 
treme reverse of beauty ; and there is not one of the lassies who now 
stagger up and down the burning marie in high-heeled boots and 
French bonnets, who would not look a thousand-fold prettier, and 



III. ST. JAMES OF THE DEEP STREAM. 33 

he said; voice of the modern Church of Yenice rank- 
ing herself nnder the black standard of the pit. 

I said you should hear the oracle of her ancient 
Church in a little while ; but you must know why, and 
to whom it was spoken, first, — and we must leave the 
Rialto for to-day. Look, as you recross its bridge, w^est- 
ward, along the broad-flowing stream ; and come here 
also, this evening, if the day sets calm, for then the 
waves of it from the Rialto island to the Ca Foscari, glow 
like an Eastern tapestry in soft-flowing crimson, fretted 
with gold ; and beside them, amidst the tumult of squalid 
ruin, remember the words that are the ' burden of 
Yenice,' as of Tyre : — 

"Be still, ye inhabitants of the Isle. Thou whom the 
merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have re- 
plenished. By great w^aters, the seed of Sihor, the 
harvest of the river, is her revenue ; and she is a mart of 
nations." 



feel, there's no coimtii g how much nobler, bare-headed but for the 
snood, and bare-foot on old-fashioned grass by the Nor' loch side, 
bringing- home from market, basket on arm, pease for papa's dinner, 
and a bunch of cherries for baby. 



CHAPTER lY. 

ST. TIIEODOKE THE CHAIR-SELLER. 

The history of Yenice divides itself, with more sharj^- 
iiess than any other I have read, into periods of distinct 
tendency and character ; marked, in their transition, by 
phenomena no less definite than those of the putting 
forth the leaves, or setting of the fruit, in a plant ;— and 
as definitely connected by one vitally progressive organ- 
ization, of which the energy must be studied in its con- 
stancy, while its results are classed in grouped system. 

If we rightly trace the order, and estimate the dura- 
tion, of such periods, we understand the life, whether of 
an organized being or a state. But not to know the time 
when the seed is ripe, or the soul mature, is to misunder- 
stand the total creature. 

In the history of great multitudes, these changes of 
their spirit, and regenerations (for they are nothing less) of 
their physical power, take place through so subtle grada- 
tions of declining and dawning thought, that the effort 
to distinguish them seems arbitrary, like separating the 
belts of a rainbow's color by firmly drawn lines. But, 
at Yenice, the lines are drawn for ns by her own hand ; 
and the changes in her temper are indicated by parallel 
modifications of her policy and constitution, to which his- 
torians have always attributed, as to efiicient causes, the 
national fortunes of which they are only the signs and 
limitation. 



ly. ST. THEODORE THE CHA.IR-SELLER 35 

In this liistoiy, the reader will find little importance at- 
tached to these external j^henomena of j)olitical constitu- 
tion ; except as labels, or, it may be, securing seals, of the 
state of the nation's heart. They are merely shapes of 
amphora, artful and decorative indeed ; tempting to criti- 
cism or copy of their form, usefully recordant of differ- 
ent ages of the wine, and having occasionally, by the 
porousness or perfectncss of their clay, effect also on 
its quality. Eut it is the grape-juice itself, and the 
changes in it^ not in the forms of flask, that we have in 
reality to study. 

Fortunately also, the dates of the great changes are 
easily remembered ; they fall with felicitous precision at 
the beginning of centuries, and divide the story of the 
city, as the pillars of her Byzantine courts, the walls of it, 
with symmetric stability. 

She shall also tell you, as I promised, her own story, in 
her own handwriting, all through. E'ot a word shall 
/ have to say in the matter; or aught to do, except to 
deepen the letters for you when they are indistinct, and 
sometimes to hold a blank space of her chart of life to 
the lire of your heart for a little while, until words, writ- 
ten secretly upon it, are seen ; — if, at least, there is fire 
enough in your own heart to heat them. 

And first, therefore, I must try what power of reading 
you have, when the letters are quite clear. We will take 
to-day, so please you, the same walk we did yesterday ; 
but looking at other things, and reading a wider lesson. 

As early as you can (in fact, to get the good of this 
walk, you must be up with the sun), any bright morning, 
when the streets are quiet, come with me to the front of 
St. Mark'sj to begin our lesson there. 



36 ST. mark's rest. 

You see that between the arches of its vaults, there are 
six oblong panels of bas-relief. 

Two of these are the earliest pieces of real Venetian 
work I know of, to show you ; but before beginning 
with them, you must see a piece done by her Greek mas- 
ters. 

Go round therefore to the side farthest from the sea, 
where, in the first broad arch, you will see a panel of like 
shape, set horizontally ; the sculpture of which represents 
twelve sheep, six on one side, six on the other, of a 
throne : on which throne is set a cross ; and on the top of 
the cross a circle ; and in the circle, a little caprioling 
creature. 

And outside of all, are two palm trees, one on each 
side ; and under each palm tree, two baskets of dates ; 
and over the twelve sheep, is written in delicate Greek 
letters '^ The holy Aj)ostles ;" and over the little caprioling 
creature, ^' The Lamb." 

Take your glass and study the carving of this bas-relief 
intently. It is full of sweet care, subtlety, tenderness of 
touch, and mind ; and tine cadence and change of line in 
the little bowing heads and bending leaves. Decorative 
in the extreme ; a kind of stone-stitching, or sampler- 
work, done with the innocence of a girl's heart, and in a 
like unlearned fulness. Here is a Christian man, bringing 
order and loveliness into the mere furrows of stone. ]iS"ot 
by any means as learned as a butcher, in the joints of 
lambs ; nor as a grocer, in baskets of dates ; nor as a 
gardener, in endogenous plants : but an artist to the 
heart's core ; and no less true a lover of Christ and His 
word. Helpless, with his childish art, to carve Christ, he 
carves a cross, and caprioling little thing in a ring at the 



IV. ST. THEODORE THE CHAIR-SELLER. 37 

top of it. You may try — you — to carv^e Christ, if you 
can. Helpless to conceive the Twelve Apostles, these 
nevertheless are sacred letters for the bearers of the Gos- 
pel of Peace. 

Of such men Yenice learned to touch the stone ; — to 
become a Lapieida, and furrower of the marble as well as 
the sea. 

Now let us go back to that panel on the left side of the 
central arch in front.'^ 

This, you see, is no more a symbolical sculpture, but 
quite distinctly pictorial, and laboriously ardent to ex- 
press, though in very low relief, a curly-haired personage, 
handsome, and something like George the Fourth, dressed 
in richest Koman armor, and sitting in an absurd manner, 
more or less tailor-fashion, if not cross-legged himself, at 
least on a conspicuously cross-legged piece of splendid fur- 
niture ; which, after deciphering the Chinese, or engi- 
neer's isometrical, perspective of it, you may perceive to 
be only a gorgeous pic-nic or drawing-stool, aj)parently of 
portable character, such as are bought (more for luxury 
than labor, — for the real working apparatus is your tri- 
pod) at Messrs. Newman's, or Winsor and Newton's. 

Ap2:)arently portable, I say ; by no means intended as 

* Generally note, wlien I say ' riglit ' or ' left ' side of a cliurcli or 
cliapel, I mean, either as you enter, or as you look to the altar. It is 
not safe to say * north and south,' for Italian churches stand all round 
the compass ; and besides, the phrase would be false of lateral chapels. 
Transepts are awkward, because often they have an altar instead of an 
entrance at their ends ; it will be least confusing to treat them always 
as large lateral chapels, and place them in the series of such chapels 
at the sides of the nave, calling the sides right and left as you look 
either from the nave into the chapels, or from the nave's centre to the 
rose window, or other termination of transept. 



38 ST. mark's rest. 

such bj the sculptor. Intended for a most permanent 
and magnificent throne of state ; nothing less than a de- 
rived form of that Greek Thronos, in which you have seen 
set the cross of the Lamb. Yes ; and of the Tyrian and 
Judgean Thronos — Solomon's, which it frightened the 
queen of Sheba to see him sitting on. Yes ; and of the 
Egyptian throne of eternal granite, on which colossal 
Memnon sits, melodious to morning light, — son of Au- 
rora. Yes; and of the throne of Isis-Madonna, and, 
mightier yet than she, as we return towards the nativity 
of queens and kings. We must keep at present to our 
own poor little modern, practical saint — sitting on his 
portable throne (as at the side of the opera when extra 
people are let in who shouldn't be) ; only seven hundred 
years old. To this cross-legged apparatus the Egyptian 
throne had dwindled down ; it looks even as if the saint 
who sits on it might begin to think about getting up 
some day or other. 

All the more when you know who he is. Can you 
read the letters of his name, written beside him ? — 

SCS GEORGIYS 

— Mr. Emerson's purveyor of bacon, no less ! " And he 
does look like getting up, when you observe him farther. 
Unsheathing his sword, is not he? 

No ; sheathing it. That was the difficult thing he had 
first to do, as you will find on reading the true legend of 
him, which this sculptor thoroughly knew ; in whose con- 
ception of the saint one perceives the date of said sculp- 

* See Fors Clavigera of February, 1873, containing tlie legend of St. 
George. This, with the other numbers of Fors referred to in the text 
of ' St. Mark's Rest,' may be bougiit at Venice, together with it. 



IV. ST. THEODORE THE CHAIR-SELLER. 39 

tor, no less than in the stiff work, so dimly yet perceptive of 
the ordinary laws of the aspect of things. From the bas- 
reliefs of the Parthenon — through sixteen hundred years 
of effort, and speech-making, and fighting — human intel- 
ligence in the Arts has arrived, here in Venice, thus far. 
But having got so far, we shall come to something fresh 
soon ! We have become distinctly representative again, 
you see ; desiring to show, not a mere symbol of a living 
man, but the man himself, as truly as the poor stone- 
cutter can carve him. All bonds of tyi;annous tradition 
broken ; — the legend kept, in faith yet ; but the symbol 
become natural ; a real armed knight, the best he could 
form a notion of ; curly-haired and handsome ; and, his 
also the boast of Dogberry, every thing handsome about 
him. Thus far has Venice got in her art schools of the 
early thirteenth century. I can date this sculpture to 
that time, pretty closely ; earlier, it may be, — not later ; 
see afterwards the notes closing this chapter. 

And now, if you so please, we will walk under the 
clock-tower, and down the Merceria, as straight as we can 
go. There is a little crook to the right, bringing us op- 
posite St. Julian's church (which, please, don't stop to 
look at just now) ; then, sharply, to the left again, and we 
come to the Ponte de' Baratteri, — " Rogue's Bridge" — on 
which, as especially a grateful bridge to English business- 
feelings, let us reverently pause. It has been widened 
lately, you observe, — the use of such bridge being greatly 
increased in these times ; and in a convenient angle, out 
of passenger current (may you find such wayside with- 
drawal in true life), you may stop to look back at the house 
immediately above the bridge. 

In the wall of which you will see a horizontal panel of 



40 ST. mark's rest. 

bas-relief, with two shields on each side, bearing six fleur- 
de-ljs. And this you need not, I suppose, look for letters 
on, to tell you its subject. Here is St. George indeed ! — 
our own beloved old sign of the George and Dragon, all 
correct ; and, if you know your Seven champions, Sabra 
too, on the rock, thrilled witness of the fight. And see 
what a dainty St. George, too ! Here is no mere tailor's 
enthronement. Eques, ipso melior Bellerophonti, — how 
he sits ! — how he holds his lance ! — how brightly youthful 
the crisp hair under his light cap of helm, — ^liow deftly 
curled the fringe of his horse's crest, — how vigorous in 
disciplined career of accustomed conquest, the two noble 
living creatures ! This is Venetian fifteenth century 
work of finest style. Outside-of -house work, of course : 
we compare at j^resent outside work only, panel with 
panel : but here are three hundred years of art progress 
written for you, in two pages, — from early thirteenth to 
late fifteenth century ; and in this little bas-relief is all to 
be seen, that can be, of elementary principle, in the very 
crest and pride of Yenetian sculpture, — of which note 
these following points. 

First, the aspirations of the front of St. Mark's have 
been entirely achieved, and though the figure is still sym- 
bolical, it is now a symbol consisting in the most literal 
realization possible of natural facts. That is the way, if 
you care to see it, that a young knight rode, in 1480, or 
thereabouts. So, his foot was set in stirrup, — so his body 
borne, — so trim and true and orderly every thing in his 
harness and his life : and this rendered, observe, with the 
most consummate precision of artistic touch. Look at the 
strap of the stirrup, — at the little delicatest line of the 
spur, — can you think they are stone ? don't they look like 



IV. ST. THEODORE THE CHAIR-SELLER. 41 

leather and steel ? His flying mantle, — is it not silk more 
than marble ? That is all in the beautiful doing of it : 
precision first in exquisite sight of the thing itself, and 
understanding of the qualities and signs, whether of silk 
or steel ; and then, precision of touch, and cimning in use 
of material, which it had taken three hundred years to 
learn. Think what cunning there is in getting such edge 
to the marble as will represent the spur line, or strap 
leather, with such solid under-support that, from 1480 till 
now, it stands rain and frost ! And for knowledge of 
form, — look at the way the little princess's foot comes out 
under the drapery as she shrinks back. Look at it first 
from the left, to see how it is foreshortened, flat on the 
rock ; then from the right, to see the curve of dress up 
the limb : — think of the difference between this and the 
feet of poor St. George Sartor of St. Mark's, })ointed down 
all their length. Finally, see how studious the whole 
thing is of beauty in every part, — how it expects you also 
to be studious. Trace the rich tresses of the princess's 
hair, wrought where the figure melts into shadow ; — the 
shai'p edges of the dragon's mail, slipping over each other 
as he wrings neck and coils tail ; — nay, what decorative 
ordering and symmetry is even in the roughness of the 
ground and rock ! And lastly, see how the whole piece 
of work, to the simplest frame of it, must be by the sculp- 
tor's own hand : see how he breaks the line of his panel 
moulding with the princess's hair, with St, George's hel- 
met, with the rough ground itself at the base ; — the entire 
tablet varied to its utmost edge, delighted in and ennobled 
to its extreme limit of substance. 

Here, then, as I said, is the top of Venetian sculpture- 
art. "Was there no going beyond this, think you ? 



42 ST. mark's rest. 

Assuredly, nuicli beyond this tlie Venetian conld have 
gone, had he gone straight forward. But at this point he 
became perverse, and there is one sign of evil in this piece, 
which you must carefully discern. 

In the two earlier sculptures, of the sheep, and the 
throned St. George^ the artist never meant to say that 
twelve sheep ever stood in two such rows, and w^ere the 
twelve apostles ; nor that St. George ever sat in that man- 
ner in a splendid chair. But he entirely believed in the 
facts of the lives of the apostles and saints, symbolized by 
such figuring. 

But the fifteenth century sculptor does^ partly, mean 
to assert that St. George did in that manner kill a dragon : 
does not clearly know whether he did or not; does not 
care very much wdiether he did or not ; — thinks it will be 
very nice if, at any rate, people believe that he did ; — but 
is more bent, in the heart of him, on making a pretty bas- 
relief than on any thing else. 

Half w^ay to infidelity, the fine gentleman is, with all 
his dainty chiselling. We wdll see, on those terms, what, 
in another century, this fine chiselling comes to. 

So now walk on, down the Merceria di San Salvador. 
Presently, if it is morning, and the sky clear, you will see, 
at the end of the narrow little street, the brick apse of St. 
Saviour's, warm against the blue ; and, if you stand close 
to the right, a solemn piece of old Venetian wall and win- 
dow on the opposite side of the calle, which you might 
pass under twenty times w^ithout seeing, if set on the 
study of shops only. Then you must turn to the right; 
perforce, — to the left again ; and now to the left, once 
more ; and you are in the little piazza of St. Salvador, 
Avith a building in front of you, now occupied as a fur- 



IV. ST. THEODORE THE CHAIR-SELLER. 43 

iiiture store, wliicli you will please look at witli atten- 
tion. 

It reminds you of many things at liome, I suppose ? — 
has a respectable, old-fashioned, city-of-London look about 
it ; — something of Greenwich Hospital, of Temple Bar, of 
St. Paul's, of Charles the Second and the Constitution, 
and the Lord Mayor and Mr. Bumble ? Truly English, in 
many respects, this solidly rich front of Ionic pillars, with 
the four angels on the top, rapturously directing your at- 
tention, by the gracefullest gesticulation, to the higher 
figure in the centre ! 

You have advanced another hundred and fifty years, and 
are in mid seventeenth century. Here is the ' Progresso ' 
of Yenice, exhibited to you, in consequence of her wealth, 
and gay life, and advance in anatomical and other 
sciences. 

Of which, note first, the display of her knowledge of 
angelic anatomy. Sabra, on the rock, just showed her 
foot beneath her robe, and that only because she w^as 
drawing back, frightened ; but, here, every angel has his 
petticoats cut up to his thighs; he is not sufiiciently sacred 
or sublime unless you see his legs so high. 

Secondly, you see how expressive are their attitudes, — 
" What a wonderful personage is this we have got in the 
middle of us ! " 

That is Paphaelesque art of the finest. Raphael, by 
this time, had taught the connoisseurs of Europe that 
whenever you admire anybody, you open your mouth and 
eyes wide ; when you wish to show him to somebody else 
you point at him vigorously with one arm, and wave the 
somebody else on with the other ; when you have nothing 
to do of that sort, you stand on one leg and hold up the 



44 ST. MARK'S REST. 

other in a graceful line ; these are the methods of true 
dramatic expression. Your drapery, meanwhile, is to be 
arranged in " sublime masses," and is not to be suggestive 
of any particular stuff ! 

If you study the drapery of these four angels thor- 
oughly, you can scarcely fail of knowing, henceforward, 
what a bad drapery is, to the end of time. Here is 
drapery supremely, exquisitely bad ; it is impossible, by 
any contrivance, to get it worse. Merely clumsy, ill-cut 
clothing, you may sec any day ; but there is skill enough 
in this to make it exemplarily execrable. That flabby 
flutter, wrinkled swelling, and puffed pomp of infinite dis- 
order ; — the only action of it, being blown up, and away ; 
the only calm of it, collapse ; — the resolution of every 
miserable fold not to fall, if it can help it, into any natu- 
ral line, — the running of every lump of it into the next, 
as dough sticks to dough — remaining, not less, evermore 
incapable of any harmony or following of each other's 
lead or way; — and the total rejection of all notion of 
beauty or use in the stuff itself. It is stuff without thick- 
ness, without fineness, without warmth, without coolness, 
w^ithout lustre, without texture ; not silk, — not linen, — 
not woollen ; — something that wrings, and wrinkles, and 
gets between legs, — that is all. Worse drapery than this, 
you cannot see in mortal investiture. 

Kor worse want of drapery, neither — for the legs are 
as ungraceful as the robes that discover them ; and the 
breast of the central figure, whom all the angels admire, 
is packed under its corslet like a hamper of tomata 
aj^ples. 

To this type the Yenetians have now brought their 
symbol of divine life in man. For this is also — St. Theo- 



IV, ST. THEODORE THE CHAIR-SELLER. 45 

dore ! And the respectable building below, in the Bum- 
ble style, is the last effort of his school of Venetian gentle- 
men to house themselves respectably. With Ionic capi- 
tals, bare-legged angels, and the Dragon, now square- 
headed and blunt-nosed, they thus contrive their last club- 
house, and prepare, for resuscitated Italy, in continued 
' Progresso,' a stately furniture store. Here you may buy 
cruciform stools, indeed ! and patent oilcloths, and other 
supports of your Venetian worshipful dignity, to heart's 
content. Here is your God's Gift to the nineteenth cen- 
tury. " Deposito mobili nazionali ed esteri ; quadri ; libri 
antichi e moderni, ed oggetti diversi." 

l!^evertheless, through all this decline in power and 
idea, there is yet, let us note finally, some wreck of Chris- 
tian intention, some feeble coloring of Christian faith. A 
saint is still held to be an admirable person ; he is prac- 
tically still the patron of your fashionable club-house, 
where you meet to offer him periodical prayer and alms. 
This architecture is, seriously, the best you can think of ; 
those angels are handsome, according to your notions of 
personality ; their attitudes really are such as you sup- 
pose to be indicative of celestial rapture, — their features, 
of celestial disposition. 

We will see what change another fifty years wdll bring 
about in these faded feelings of Venetian soul. 

The little calle on your right, as you front St. Theo- 
dore, will bring you straight to the quay below the Ri- 
alto, wdiere your gondola shall be waiting, to take you as 
far as the bridge over the Cannareggio under the Palazzo 
Labia. Stay your gondola before passing under it, and 
look carefully at the sculptured ornaments of the arch, 
and then at the correspondent ones on the other side. 



46 ST. mark's rest. ■ 

In these you see the last manner of sculpture, executed 
hj Yenetian artists, according to the mind of Yenice, for 
her own pride and pleasure. Much she has done since, of 
art-work, to sell to strangers, executed as she thinks will 
please the stranger best. But of art produced for her own 
joy and in her own honor, this is a chosen example of 
the last ! 

'Not representing saintly persons, you see ; nor angels 
in attitudes of admiration. Quite other personages than 
angelic, and with expressions of any thing rather than af- 
fection or respect for aught of good, in earth or heaven. 
Such were the last imaginations of her polluted heart, be- 
fore death. She had it no more in her power to conceive 
any other. " Behold thy last gods," — the Fates compel 
her thus to gaze and perish. 

This last stage of her intellectual death precedes her 
political one by about a century ; during the last half of 
wdiich, however, she did little more than lay foundations 
of walls w^hich she could not complete. Yirtually, we 
may close her national history with the seventeenth cen- 
tury ; we shall not ourselves follow it even so far. 

I have shown you, to-day, pieces of her art-w^ork by 
wdiich you may easily remember its cardinal divisions. 

You saw first the work of her Greek masters, under 
whom she learned both her faith and art. 

Secondly, the beginning of her own childish efforts, in 
the St. George enthroned. 

Thirdly, the culmination of her skill in the St. George 
combatant. 

Fourthly, the languor of her faith and art power, under 
the advance of her luxury, in the hypocrisj^ of St. Theo- 
dore's Scuola, now a furniture warehouse. 



IV. ST. THEODORE THE CHAIR-SELLER. -ft 

Lastly, her dotage before sliamef ul cleatli. 

In the next cha23ter, I will mark, by their natural limits, 
the epochs of her political history, which correspond to 
these conditions of her knowledge, hope, and imagination. 

But as you return home, and again pass before the 
porches of St. Mark's, I may as well say at once what I 
can of these six bas-reliefs between them. 

On the sides of the great central arch are St. George 
and St. Demetrius, so inscribed in Latin. Between the 
next lateral porches, the Virgin and Archangel Gabriel, 
so inscribed, — the Archangel in Latin, the '' Mother of 
God" in Greek. 

And between these and the outer porches, uninscribed, 
two of the labors of Hercules. I am much doubtful 
concerning these, myself, — do not know their manner of 
sculpture, nor understand their meaning. They are fine 
work ; the Venetian antiquaries say, very early (sixth 
century) ; types, it may be, of physical human power 
prevailing over wild nature ; the war of the world before 
Christ. 

Then the Madonna and Angel of Annunciation express 
the Advent. 

Then the two Christian Warrior Saints express the 
heart of Venice in her armies. 

There is no doubt, therefore, of the purposeful choos- 
ing and placing of these bas-reliefs. Where the outer 
ones were brought from, I know not ; the four inner ones, 
I think, are all contemporary, and carved for their j)lace 
by the Venetian scholars of the Greek schools, in late 
twelfth or early thirteenth century. 

My special reason for assigning this origin to them is 
the manner of the foliage under the feet of the Gabriel, 



48 ST. mark's rest. 

in wliicli is tlie origin of all tlie earlj foliage in the 
Gothic of Yenice. This bas-relief, however, appears to 
be by a better master than the others — perhaps later ; and 
is of extreme beauty. 

Of the ruder St. George, and successive sculptures of 
Evangelists on the north side, I cannot yet speak with 
decision ; nor would you, until we have followed the story' 
of Yenice farther, probably care to hear. 



CHAPTEE Y. 

THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL. 

The liistory of Yenice, then, divides itself into four 
quite distinct periods. 

I. The first, in which the fugitives from many cities on 
the mainland, gathered themselves into one nation, de- 
pendent for existence on its labor upon the sea ; and 
which develops itself, by that labor, into a race distinct 
in temper from all the other families of Christendom^ 
This process of growth and mental formation is neces- 
sarily a long one, the result being so great. It takes 
roughly, seven hundred years — from the fifth to the 
eleventh century, both inclusive. Accurately, from the 
Annunciation day, March 25th, 421, to the day of St* 
Nicholas, December 6th, 1100. 

At the close of this epoch Yenice had fully learned 
Christianity from the Greeks, chivalry from the Nor- 
mans, and the laws of human life and toil from the ocean. 
Prudently and nobly proud, she stood, a helpful and wise 
princess, highest in counsel and mightiest in deed, among 
the knightly powers of the world. 

II. The second period is that of her great deeds in war, 
and of the establishment of her reign in justice and truth 
(the best at least that she knew of eithei*), over, nominally, 
the fourth part of the former Pom an Empire. It in- 
cludes the whole of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 



50 ST. mark's rest. 

and is chiefly cliaracterized by the religious passion of the 
Crusades. It lasts, in accurate terms, from December 
6th, 1100, to February 28th, 1297 ; but as the event of 
that day was not confirmed till three years afterwards, we 
get the fortunately precise terminal date of 1301. 

III. TJie third period is that of religious meditation, 
as distinct, though not withdrawn from, religious action. 
It is marked by the establishment of schools of kindly 
civil order, and by its endeavors to express, in word and 
picture, the thoughts which until then had wrought in 
silence. The entire body of her noble art-work belongs 
to this time. It includes the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries, and twenty years more : from 1301''^ to 1520. 

TV. The fourth period is that of the luxurious use, and 
display, of the powers attained by the labor and medi- 
tation of former times, but now ajDplied without either 
labor or meditation : — religion, art, and literature, hav- 
ing become things of custom and " costume." It sj^ends, 
in eighty ^^ears, the fruits of the toil of a thousand, and 
terminates, strictly, with the death of Tintoret, in 1594; 
we will say 1600. 

From that day the remainder of the record of Yenice 
is only the diary of exj)iring delirium, and by those who 
love her, will be traced no farther. But while you are 
here within her walls I will endeavor to interpret clearly 
to vou the leo;ends on them, in which she has herself re- 
lated the passions of her Four Ages. 

And see how easily they arc to be numbered and re- 
membered. Twelve hundred years in all ; divided — if, 
broadly, we call the tliird period two centuries, and the 

* Compare ' Stones of Venice ' (old edit.), vol. ii., p. 291. 



V. THE SHADOW O^^ THE DIAL. 51 

fourth, one, — in diminishing proportion, 7, 2, 2, 1 : it is 
like the spiral of a shell, reversed. 

I have in this first sketch of them distino^uished these 
four ages by the changes in the chief element of every 
nation's mind — its religion, with the consequent results 
upon its art. But you see I have made no mention what- 
ever of all that common historians think it their primal 
business to discourse of, — policy, government, commercial 
prosperity ! One of my dates however is determined by 
a crisis of internal policy ; and I will at least note, as the 
material instrumentation of the spiritual song, the meta- 
morphoses of state-order which accompanied, in each 
transition, the new nativities of the state's heart. 

I. During the first period, which completes the binding 
of many tribes into one, and the softening of savage faith 
into intelligent Christianity, we see the gradual establish- 
ment of a more and more distinctly virtuous monarchic 
authority ; continually disputed, and often abused, but 
purified by every reign into stricter duty, and obeyed by 
every generation with more sacred regard. At the close 
of this epoch, the helpful presence of God, and the leading 
powers of the standard-bearer Saint, and sceptre-bearing 
King, are vitally believed ; reverently, and to the death, 
obeyed. And, in the eleventh century, the Palace of the 
Duke and lawgiver of the people, and his Chapel, en- 
shrining the body of St. Mark, stand, bright with marble 
and gold, side by side. 

II. In the second period, that of active Christian war- 
fare, there separates itself from the mass of the people, 
chiefly by pre-eminence in knightly achievement, and j)er- 
sistence in patriotic virtue, — but also, by the intellectual 
training received in the conduct of great foreign enter- 



52 ST. mark's rest. 

prise, and maintenance of legislation among strange 
people, — an order of aristocracy, raised both in wisdom 
and valor greatly above tlie average level of the multitude, 
and gradually joining to the traditions of Patrician Rome, 
the domestic refinements, and imaginative sanctities, of 
the northern and Frankish chivalry, whose chiefs were 
their battle comrades. At the close of the epoch, this 
more sternly educated class determines to assume author- 
ity in the government of the State, unswayed by the 
humor, and unhindered by the ignorance, of the lower 
classes of the people ; and the year which I have assigned 
for the accurate close of the second period is that of the 
great division between nobles and plebeians, called by the 
Yenetians the "Closing of the Council," — the restriction, 
that is to say, of the powers of the Senate to the lineal 
aristocracy. 

III. The third period shows us the advance of this now 
separate body of Venetian gentlemen in such thought and 
passion as the privilege of their position admitted, or its 
temptations provoked. The gradually increasing knowl- 
edge of literature, culminating at last in the discovery of 
printing, and revival of classic formulae of method, modi- 
fied by reflection, or dimmed by disbelief, the frank 
Christian faith of earlier ages ; and social position indepen- 
dent of military prowess, developed at once the ingenuity, 
frivolity, and vanity of the scholar, with the avarice and 
cunning of the merchant. 

Protected and encouraged by a senate thus composed, 
distinct companies of craftsmen, wholly of the people, 
gathered into vowed fraternities of social order ; and, re- 
taining the illiterate sincerities of their religion, labored 
in unambitious peace, under the orders of the philosophic 



V. THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL. 53 

aristocracy ; — built for tliem their great palaces, and over- 
laid their walls, within and without, with gold and purple 
of Tjre, precious now in Venetian hands as the colors of 
heaven more than of the sea. By the hand of one of 
them, the picture of Yenice, with her nobles in her streets, 
at the end of this epoch, is preserved to you as yet, and I 
trust will be, by the kind fates, preserved datelessly. 

lY. In the fourth period, the discovery of printing 
having confused literature into vociferation, and the deli- 
cate skill of the craftsman having provoked s^^lendor into 
lasciviousness, the jubilant and coruscant passions of the 
nobles, stately yet in the forms of religion, but scornful of 
her discipline, exhausted, in their own false honor, at once 
the treasures of Yenice and her skill ; reduced at last hei* 
people to misery, and her policy to shame, and smoothed 
for themselves the downward way to the abdication of 
their might for evermore. 

'Now these two histories of the religion and policy of 
Yenice are only intense abstracts of the same course of 
thought and events in every nation of Europe. Through- 
out the whole of Christendom, the two stories in like 
manner proceed together. The acceptance of Christianity 
— the practice of it — the abandonment of it — and moral 
ruin. The development of kingly authority, — the obedi- 
ence to it — the corruption of it — and social ruin. But 
there is no evidence that the first of these courses of 
national fate is vitally connected with the second. That 
infidel kings may be just, and Christian ones corrupt, was 
the first lesson Yenice learned when she began to be a 
scholar. 

And observe there are three quite distinct conditions of 
feeling and assumptions of theory in which we may ap- 



64: ST. mark's rest. 

pi'oacli this matter. The first, that of our numerous cock- 
ney friends, — that the dukes of Yenice were mostly hyp- 
ocrites, and if not, fools ; that their pious zeal was merely 
such a cloak for their commercial appetite as modern church- 
going is for modern swindling; or else a pitiable halluci- 
nation and puerility : — that really the attention of the 
supreme cockney mind would be wasted on such bygone 
absurdities, and that out of mere respect for the common 
sense of monkey-born-and-bred humanity, the less we say 
of them, the better. 

The second condition of feeling is, in its full confession, 
a very rare one ; — that of true respect for the Christian 
faith, and sympathy with the passions and imaginations it 
excited, while yet in security of modern enlightenment, 
the observer regards the faith itself only as an exquisite 
dream of mortal childhood, and the acts of its votaries as 
a beautifully deceived heroism of vain hope. 

This theory of the splendid mendacity of Heaven, and 
majestic somnambulism of man, I have only known to be 
held in the sincere depth of its discomfort, by one of my 
wisest and dearest friends, under the j)ressure of uncom- 
prehended sorrow in his own personal experience. But 
to some extent it confuses or undermines the thoughts of 
nearly all men who have been interested in the material 
investigations of recent physical science, while retaining 
yet imagination and understanding enough to enter into 
the heart of the religious and creative ages. 

And it necessarily takes possession of the spirit of such 
men chiefly at the times of ]3ersonal sorrow, which teach 
even to the wisest, the hollowness of their best trust, and 
the vanity of their dearest visions ; and when the epitaph 



V. THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL. 55 

of all Imman virtue, and sum of human peace, seem to be 
written in the lowly argument, — 

" We are sucli stuff 
As dreams are made of ; aud our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep." 

The third, the only modest, and therefore the only ra- 
tional, theory, is, that we are all and always, in these as 
in former ages, deceived by our own guilty passions, 
blinded by our own obstinate wills, and misled by the in- 
solence and fantasy of our ungoverned thoughts ; but that 
there is verily a Divinity in nature which has shaped the 
rough hewn deeds of our weak human effort, and revealed 
itself in rays of broken, but of eternal light, to the souls 
which have desired to see the day of the Son of Man. 

By the more than miraculous fatality which has been 
hitherto permitted to rule the course of tlie kingdoms of this 
world, the men who are capable of accepting such faith, 
are rarely able to read the history of nations by its inter- 
pretation. They nearly all belong to some one of the 
passionately egoistic sects of Christianity ; and are mis- 
erably perverted into the missionary service of their own 
schism ; eager only, in the records of the past, to gather 
evidence to the advantage of their native persuasion, and 
to the disgrace of all opponent forms of similar heresy ; 
or, that is to say, in every case, of nine-tenths of the re- 
ligion of this world. 

With no less thankfulness for the lesson, than shame 
for what it showed, I have myself been forced to recog- 
nize the degree in which all my early work on Venetian 
history was paralyzed by this petulance of sectarian ego- 
tism ; and it is among the chief advantages I possess for 



56 ST. mark's rest. 

the task now undertaken in my closing years, that there 
are few of the errors against which I have to warn*niy 
readers, into which I have not myself at some time fallen. 
Of which errors, the chief, and cause of all the rest, is the 
leaning on our own understanding ; the thought that we 
can measure the hearts of our brethren, and judge of the 
ways of God. Of the hearts of men, noble, yet " de- 
ceitful above all things, who can know them ? " — that in- 
finitely perverted scripture is yet infinitely true. And 
for the ways of God ! Oh, my good and gentle reader, 
how much otherwise would not you and I have made this 
world ? 



CHAPTER YI. 



KED AND AVHITE CLOUDS. 



Not, therefore, to lean on our own sense, bnt in all the 
strength it has, to use it ; not to be captives to our private 
thoughts, but to dwell in them, without wandering, until, 
out of the chambers of our own hearts we begin to con- 
ceive what labyrinth is in those of others, — thus we have 
to prepare ourselves, good reader, for the reading of any 
history.* 

If but we may at last succeed in reading a little of our 
own, and discerning what scene of the world's drama we 
are set to play in, — drama whose tenor, tragic or other, 
seemed of old to rest with so few actors; but now, with 
this pantomimic mob upon the stage, can you make out 
any of the story ? — prove, even in your own heart, how 
much you believe that there is any Play wi'ight behind the 
scenes ? 

Such a w^ild dream as it is ! — nay, as it always has been, 
except in momentary fits of consciousness, and instants of 
startled spirit, — perceptive of heaven. For many cen- 
turies the Knights of Christendom wore their religion gay 
as their crest, familiar as their gauntlet, shook it high in 
the summer air, hurled it fiercely in other people's faces, 
grasped their spear the firmer for it, sat their horses the 
prouder ; but it never entered into their minds for an in- 
stant to ask the meaning of it ! ' Forgive us our sins:' by 



58 ST. mark's rest. 

all means — yes, and the next garrison that holds ont a day 
longer than is convenient to ns, hang them every man to his 
battlement. ^ Give us this day our dally bread,'— yes, and 
our neighbor's also, if we have any luck. * Our Lady and 
the saints ! ' Is there any infidel dog that doubts of them ? 
— in God's name, boot and spur — and let us have the head 
off him. It went on so, frankly and bravely, to the twelfth 
century, at the earliest ; when men begin to think in a 
serious manner ; more or less of gentle manners and do- 
mestic comfort being also then conceivable and attainable. 
Rosamond is not any more asked to drink out of her 
father's skull. Rooms begin to be matted and wainscoted ; 
shops to hold store of marvellous foreign wares ; knights 
and ladies learn to spell, and to read, with pleasure ; music 
is everywhere ; — Death, also. Much to enjoy — much to 
learn, and to endure — with Death always at the gates. " If 
war fail thee in thine own country, get thee with haste 
into another," says the faithful old French knight to the 
boy-chevalier, in early fourteenth century days. 

'No country stays more than two centuries in this in- 
termediate phase between Faith and Reason. In France 
it lasted from about 1150 to 1350 ; in England, 1200 to 
1400 ; in Yenice, 1300 to 1500. The course of it is al- 
ways in the gradual development of Christianity, — till 
her yoke gets at once too aerial, and too straight, for the 
mob, who break through it at last as if it were so much 
gossamer ; and at the same fatal time, wealth and luxury, 
with the vanity of corrupt learning, foul the faith of the 
upper classes, who now begin to wear their Christianity, 
not tossed for a crest high over their armor, but stuck as 
a plaster over their sores, inside of their clothes. Then 
comes printing, and universal gabble of fools ; gunpow- 



VI. RED AND WHITE CLOUDS. 69 

der, and tlie end of all the noble methods of war ; trade, 
and universal swindling ; wealth, and universal gambling ; 
idleness, and universal harlotry ; and so at last — Modern 
Science and Political Economy ; and the reign of St. Pe- 
troleum instead of St. Peter. Oat of which God only 
knows what is to come next ; but lie does know, whatever 
the Jew swindlers and apothecaries' 'prentices think 
about it. 

Meantime, with what remainder of belief in Christ may 
be left in us ; and helping that remnant with all the power 
we have of imagining what Christianity was, to people 
who, without understanding its claims or its meaning, did 
not doubt for an instant its statements of fact, and used 
the whole of their childish imagination to realize the acts 
of their Saviours life, and the presence of His angels, let 
us draw near to the first sandy thresholds of the Yene- 
tian's home. 

Before you read any of the so-called historical events of 
the first j)eriod, I want you to have some notion of their 
scene. Your will hear of Tribunes — Consuls — Doges; 
but what sort of tribes were they tribunes of ? what sort 
of nation were they dukes of ? You will hear of brave 
naval battle — victory over sons of Emperors : what man- 
ner of people Avere they, then, whose swords lighten thus 
brightly in the dawn of chivalry ? 

For the whole of her first seven hundred years of work 
and war, Yenice was in great part a wooden town ; the 
houses of the noble mainland families being for long 
years chiefly at Heraclea, and on other islands; nor they 
magnificent, but farm-villas mostly, of which, and their 
farming, more presently. Far too much stress has been 
generally laid on the fishing and salt-works of early Yenice, 



60 ST. mark's rest. 

as if tliey were lier only businesses ; nevertheless at least 
yournay be sure of this much, that for seven hundred years 
Venice had more likeness in her to old Yarmouth than to 
new Pall Mall ; and that yon might come to shrewder 
guess of what she and her people were like, by living for 
a year or two lovingly among the herring-catchers of Yar- 
mouth Roads, or the boatmen of Deal or Boscastle, than 
by reading any lengths of eloquent history. But you are 
to know also, and remember always, that this amphibious 
city — this Phocsea, or sea-dog of towns — looking with 
soft human eyes at you from the sand, Proteus himself 
latent in the salt-smelling skin of her — had fields, and 
plots of garden here and there ; and, far and near, sweet 
woods of Calypso, graceful with quivering sprays, for 
woof of nests — ^gaunt with forked limbs for ribs of ships ; 
had good milk and butter from familiarly couchant cows ; 
thickets wherein familiar birds could sing ; and finally 
was observant of clouds and sky, as pleasant and useful 
phenomena. And she had at due distances among her 
simple dwellings, stately churches of marble. 

These things you may know, if you will, from the fol- 
lowing ''quite ridiculous" tradition, which, ridiculous as it 
may be, I will beg you for once to read, since the Doge 
Andrea Dandolo wrote it for you, with the attention due 
to the address of a Yenetian gentleman, and a King.'^" 

" As head and bishop of the islands, the Bishop Mag- 

* A more graceful form of tliis legend lias been translated with feel 
ing and care by the Countess Isobcl Cholmley, in Bermani, from an 
MS. in lier possession, copied, I believe, from one of the tenth century. 
But I take the form in which it was Avritten by Andrea Dandolo, that 
the reader may have more direct associations with the beautiful image 
of the Doge on his tomb in the Baptistery. 



VI. RED AND AVHITE CLOUDS. 61 

nus of Altiniim went from place to place to give them 
comfort, saying that they ought to thank God for having 
escaped from these barbarian cruelties. And there ap- 
peared to him St. Peter, ordering him that in the head of 
Yenice, or truly of the city of Eivoalto, where he should 
find oxen and sheep feeding, he was to build a church 
under his (St. Peter's) name. And thus he did ; building 
St. Peter's Church in the island of Olivolo, where at pres- 
ent is the seat and cathedral church of Yenice. 

" Afterwards appeared to him the angel Raphael, com- 
mitting it to him, that at another place, where he should 
find a number of birds together, he should build him a 
church : and so he did, w^hich is the church of the Angel 
Paphael in Dorsoduro. 

" Afterwards appeared to him Messer Jesus Christ our 
Lord, and committed to him that in the midst of the city 
he should build a church, in the place, above w^hich he 
should see a red cloud rest : and so he did ; and it is San. 
Salvador. 

" Afterwards appeared to him the most holy Mary the 
A^irgin, very beautiful ; and commanded him that where 
he should see a w^iite cloud rest, he should build a church : 
which is the church of St. Mary the Beautiful. 

'' Yet still appeared to him St. John the Baptist, com- 
manding that he should build two churches, one near the 
other — the one to be in his name, and the other in the 
name of his father. Which he, did, and they are San 
Giovanni in Bragola, and San Zaccaria. 

" Then appeared to him the apostles of Clirist, wishing, 
they also, to have a church in this new city ; and they 
committed it to him that where he should see twelve 
cranes in a company, there he should build it. Lastly 



62 ST. mark's rest. 

appeared to him the blessed Yirgin Giustina, and ordered 
him that where he should find vines bearing fresh fruits 
there he should build her a church." 

ITow this legend is quite one of the most precious 
things in the story of Venice : preserved for us in this 
form at the end of the fourteenth century, by one of her 
most highly educated gentlemen, it shows the very heart 
of her religious and domestic power, and assures for us, 
with other evidence, these following facts. 

First ; that a certain measure of pastoral home-life was 
mingled with Venice's training of her sailors ; — evidence 
whereof remains to this day, in the unfailing ' Campo ' 
round every, church ; the church ^ meadow ' — not church- 
'yard.' It happened to me, once in my life, to go t) 
church in a state of very great happiness and peace of 
mind ; and this in a very small and secluded country 
church. And Fors would have it that I should get a seat 
in the chancel ; and the day was sunny, and the little side 
chancel-door was open opposite into, w^iat I hope was a 
field. I saw no graves in it ; but in the sunshine, sheep 
feeding. And I never was at so divine a church service 
before, nor have been since. If you will read the opening 
of Wordsworth's ^ White Doe of E-ylstone,' and can enjoy 
it, you may learn from it what the look of an old Vene- 
tian church would be, with its surrounding field. St. 
Mark's Place was only the meadow of St. Theodore's 
church, in those days. 

'Next — you observe the care and watching of animals. 
That is still a love in the lieart of Venice. One of the 
chief little worries to me in my w^ork here, is that I walk 
faster than the pigeons are used to have people walk ; and 



VI. EED AND WHITE CLOUDS. 63 

am continually like to tread on them ; and see story in 
Fors, Marcli of this year, of the gondolier and his dog. 
]S^ay, though, the other day, I was greatly tormented at 
the public gardens, in the early morning, when I had 
counted on a quiet walk, by a cluster of boys who 
were chasing the first twittering birds of the spring 
from bush to bush, and throwing sand at them, with wild 
shouts and whistles, they were not doing it, as I at first 
thought, in mere mischief, but with hope of getting a 
penny or two to gamble with, if they could clog the poor 
little creatures' wings enough to bring one down — ■ 
" ^ Canta bene, signer, quell' uccellino." Such the nine- 
teenth century's reward of Song. Meantime, among the 
silvery gleams of islet tower on the lagoon horizon, be- 
yond Mazorbo — a white ray flashed from the place where 
St. Francis preached to the Birds. 

Then thirdly — note that curious observance of the color 
of clouds. That is gone, indeed ; and no Venetian, or 
Italian, or Frenchman, or Englishman, is likely to know 
or care, more, whether any God-given cloud is white or 
red ; the primal effort of his entire human existence being 
now to vomit out the biggest black one he can pollute the 
heavens with. But, in their rough way, there was yet a 
perception in the old fishermen's eyes of the difference 
between white ' nebbia ' on the morning sea, and red 
clouds in the evening twilight. And the Stella Maris 
comes in the sea Cloud ; — Leucothea : but the Son of 
Man on the jasper throne. 

Thus much of the aspect, and the thoughts of earliest 
Yenice, we may gather from one tradition, carefully read. 
"What historical evidence exists to confirm the eratlierino-, 
you shall see in a little while ; meantime— such being the 



^^ ST. mark's rest. 

scene of the opening drama— we must next consider some- 
what of the character of tlie actors. For though what 
manner of houses they had, has been too little known, 
what manner of men they were, has not at all been 
known, or even the reverse of known, — belied. 



CHAPTEK YII. 

DIVINE RIGHT. 

Are you impatient with me? and do you wish me, 
ceasing preamble, to begin — ' In the year this, happened 
that,' and set you down a page of dates and Doges to be 
learned off by rote? You must be denied such delight a 
little while longer. If I begin dividing this first period, 
at present (and it has very distinctly articulated joints of 
its own), we should get confused between the subdivided 
and the great epochs. I must keep your thoughts to the 
Three Times, till we know them clearly ; and in this 
chapter I am only going to tell you the story of a single 
Doge of the First Time, and gather what we can out of it. 

Only, since we have been hitherto dwelling on the soft 
and religiously sentimental parts of early Yenetian char- 
acter, it is needful that I should ask you to notice one 
condition in their government of a qnite contrary nature, 
which historians usually pass by as if it were of no conse- 
quence ; namely, that during this first period, five Doges, 
after being deposed, had their eyes put out. 

Pidlecl out, say some writers, and I think with evidence 
reaching down as far as the endurance on our English 
stage of the blinding of Gloster in King Lear. 

But at all events the Dukes of Yenice, whom her people 
thought to have failed in their duty, were in that manner 
incapacitated from reigning more. 

An Eastern custom, as we know : grave in judgment ; 



66 ST. maek's eest. 

in the perfectness of it, joined with infliction of grievous 
Sight, before the infliction of grievous Blindness ; that so 
the last memory of this world's light might remain a 
grief. " And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his 
eyes; and put out the eyes of Zedekiah." 

Custom I know not how ancient. The sons of Eliab, 
when Judah was young in her Exodus, like Venice, 
appealed to it in their fury : ''Is it a small thing that 
thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with 
milk and honey, except thou make thyself altogether a 
Prince over us ; wilt thou put out the eyes of these men ? " 

The more wild Western races of Christianity, early Irish 
and the like, — Norman even, in the pirate times, — inflict 
the penalty wdth reckless scorn ; "^ but Venice deliberately, 
as was her constant way ; such her practical law against 
leaders whom she had found spiritually blind : " These, at 
least, shall guide no more." 

Very savage ! monstrous ! if you will ; whether it be 
not a worse savageness deliberately to follow leaders with- 
out sight, may be debatable. 

The Doge whose history I am going to tell you was the 
last of deposed Kings in the flrst epoch. Not blinded, 

* Or sometimes pitifully : " Olaf was by no means an unmerciful 
man, — much tlie reverse where he saw good cause. There was a 
wicked old King E,8erik, for example, one of those five kinglets whom, 
with their bits of armaments, Olaf, by stratagem, had surrounded one 
night, and at once bagged and subjected when morning rose, all of 
them consenting ; — all of them except this Eaerik, whom Olaf, as the 
readiest sure course, took home with him; blinded, and kept in his; 
own house, finding there was no alternative but that or death to the 
obstinate old dog, who was a kind of distant cousin withal, and could 
not conscientiously be killed " — (Carlyle, — ' Early Kings of Norway,' 
p. 121) — conscience, and kin-ship, or " kindliness," declining some- 
what in the Norman heart afterwards. 



VII. DIVINE RIGHT. 67 

he, as far as I read ; but permitted, I trust peaceably, to 
become a monk ; Yenice owing to him much that has been 
the delight of her own and other people's eyes, ever since. 
Respecting the occasion of his dethronement, a story 
remains, however, very notably in connection with this 
manner of punishment. 

Yenice, throughout this first period in close alliance 
with the Greeks, sent her Doge, in the year 10S2, with a 
" valid fleet, terrible in its most ordered disposition," to 
defend the Emperor Alexis against the N^ormans, led by 
the greatest of all Western captains, Guiscard. 

The Doge defeated him in naval battle once ; and, on 
tlie third day after, once again, and so conclusively, tliat, 
thinking the debate ended, he sent his lightest ships 
home, and anchored on the Albanian coast with the rest, 
as having done his work. 

But Guiscard, otherwise minded on that matter, with 
the remains of his fleet, — and his l^orman temper at 
hottest, — attacked him for the third time. The Greek 
allied ships fled. The Yenetian ones, partly disabled, had 
no advantage in their seamanship : *" question only re- 
mained, after the battle, how the Yenetians should bear 
themselves as prisoners. Guiscard put out the eyes of 
some ; then, with such penalty impending over the rest, 
demanded that they should make peace with the Nor- 
mans, and fight for the Greek Emperor no more. 

But the Yenetians answered, "Know thou, Duke 
Kobert, that although also we should see our wives and 
children slain^ we will not deny our covenants with the 



* Their crews had eaten all their stores, and their ships were flying 
light, and would not steer well. 



68 ST. mark's eest. 

Autocrat Alexis ; neither will we cease to help him, and 
to fiofht for him. with our wliole hearts." 

The l^orman chief sent them home unransomed. 

There is a highwater mark for you of the weaves of 
Venetian and Western chivalry in the eleventh century. 
A very notable scene ; the northern leader, without rival 
the irreatest soldier of the sea whom our rocks and ice-bers^s 
bred : of the Yenetian one, and his people, we will now try 
to learn the character more perfectly, — for all this took 
place towards the close of the Doge Selvo's life. You 
shall next hear what I can glean of the former course of it. 

In the year 1053, the Abbey of St. Nicholas, the pro- 
tector of mariners, had been built at the entrance of the 
port of Yenice (where, north of the bathing establishment, 
you now see the little church of St. Nicholas of the Lido) ; 
the Doge Domenico Contarini, the Patriarch of Grado, 
and the Bishop of Yenice, chiefly finding the funds for 
such edifice. 

When the Doge Contarini died, the entire multitude of 
the people of Yenice came in armed boats to the Lido, 
and the Bishop of Yenice, and the monks of the new 
abbey of St. Nicholas, joined wdtli them in prayer, — the 
monks in their church and the people on the shore and in 
their boats, — that God w^ould avert all dangers from their 
country, and grant to them such a king as should be 
worthy to reign over it. And as they prayed, with one 
accord, suddenly there rose up among the multitude the 
cry, " Domenico Selvo, we will, and we approve," whom 
a crowd of the nobles brought instantly forward there- 
upon, and raised him on their own shoulders and carried 
him to his boat ; into which when he had entered, he put 
off his shoes from his feet, that he might in all humility 



YII. DIVINE RIGHT. 69 

approach tlie cliurcli of St. Mark. And while tlie boats 
began to row from the ishind towards Yenice, the monk 
who saw this, and tells us of it, himself began to sing the 
Te Deum. All around, the voices of tlie people took up 
the hvmn, following it with the Kjrie Eleison, with such 
litan}^ keeping time to tlieir oars in the bright noonday, 
and rejoicing on their native sea ; all the towers of the 
city answering with triumph peals as they drew nearer. 
Tliey brought their Doge to the Field of St. Mark, and 
carried him again on their shoulders to the porcli of the 
church ; there, entering barefoot, with songs of praise to 
God round him — '' such that it seemed as if the vaults 
must fall," — he prostrated himself on the earth, and gave 
I hanks to God and St. Mark, and uttered such vow as was 
in his heart to offer before them. Rising, he received at 
tlie altar the Venetian sceptre, and thence entering the 
Ducal Palace, received there the oath of fealty from the 
people."^ 

* This account of the election of the Doge Selvo is given by Sanso- 
vino (' Venetia descritta,' Lib. xi. 40 ; Venice, 1663, p. 477), — saying at 
the close of it simply, " Thus writes Domenico Rino, who was his chap- 
lain, and who was present at what I liave related." Sansovino seems 
therefore to have seen Kino's manuscript : but Romanin, without 
referring to Sansovino, gives the relation as if he had seen the MS. 
himself, but misprints the chronicler's name as Domenico Tino, causing 
no little trouble to my kind friend Mr. Lorenzi and me, in hunting at 
St. Mark's and the Correr Museum for the unheard-of chronicle, till 
Mr. Lorenzi traced the passage. And since Sansovino's time nothing 
has been seen or further said of the Rino Clironicle. — See Foscarini, 
"della letteratura Veneziana," Lib. ii. 

Romanin has also amplified and inferred somewhat beyond Sanso- 
vino's words. The dilapidation of the palace furniture, especially, is 
not attributed by Sansovino to festive pillage, but to neglect after Con- 
tarini's death. Unquestionably, however, the custom alluded to in the 
text existed from very early times 



TO ST. mark's rest. 

Benighted wretclies, all of them, you think, prince 
and people alike, don't you? They were pleasanter 
creatures to see, at any rate, than any you will see in St. 
Mark's field nowadays. If the pretty ladies, indeed, 
would walk in the porch like the I3oge, barefoot, instead 
of in boots cloven in two like the devil's hoofs, something 
might be said for them; but though they will recklessly 
drag their dresses through it, I suppose they would 
scarcely care to Avalk, like Greek maids, in that mixed 
mess of dust and spittle with which modern progressive 
Venice anoints her marble pavement. Pleasanter to look 
at, I can assure you, this multitude deligliting in their 
God and their Duke, than these, who have no Paradise to 
trust to with better gifts for them than a gazette, cigar, 
and pack of cards ; and no better governor than their own 
wills. You will see no especially happy or wise faces 
produced in St. Mark's Place under these conditions. 

Nevertheless, the next means that the Doge Selvo took 
for the pleasure of his people on his coronation day sa- 
voured somewhat of modern republican principles. He 
gave them " the pillage of his palace" — no less ! What- 
ever they could lay their hands on, these faithful ones, 
they might carry away with them, with the Doge's bless- 
ing. At evening he laid down the uneasy crowned head 
of him to rest in mere dismantled walls ; hands dexterous 
in the practices of profitable warfare having bestirred 
themselves all the day. Next morning the first Ducal 
public orders were necessarily to the upholsterers and 
furnishers for readornment of the palace-rooms. Not by 
any special grace this, or benevolent novelty of idea in 
the good Doge, but a received custom, hitherto; sacred 
enough, if one understands it, — a kind of mythical putting 



VII. DIVINE RIGHT. 71 

off all the burdens of one's former wealth, and enterinir 
barefoot, bare-bodj, bare-soul, into this one duty of Guide 
and Lord, lightened thus of all regard for his own affairs 
or properties. '• Take all I have, from henceforth ; the 
corporal vestments of me, and all that is in their pockets, 
1 give you to-day ; the stripped life of me is yours for- 
ever." Such, virtually, the King's vow. 

Frankest largesse thus cast to his electors (modern 
bribery is quite as costly and not half so merry), the Doge 
set himself to refit, not his own palace merely, but much 
more, God's house : for this prince is one who has at once 
David's piety, and soldiership, and Solomon's love of fine 
things ; a perfect man, as I read him, capable at once and 
gentle, religious and joyful, in the extreme : as a warrior 
the match of Robert Guiscard, who, you will find, Avas the 
soldier jpar excellence of the middle ages, but not his 
match in the Avild-cat cunning — both of them alike in 
knightly honor, Avord being given. As a soldier, I say, 
the match of Guiscard, but not holding war for the pas- 
time of life, still less for the duty of Yenice or her king. 
Peaceful affairs, the justice and the joy of human deeds 
— in these he sought his power, by principle and passion 
equally ; religious, as we have seen ; royal, as we shall 
presently see; commercial, as we shall finally see; a per- 
fect man, recognized as such with concurrent applause of 
people and submission of noble : " Domenico Selvo, we 
will, and we approve." 

IS'o flaw in him, then ? Kay ; " how bad the best of us !" 
say Punch,^ and the modern evangelical. Flaw he had. 



* Epitaph on the Bishop of Winchester (Wilberforce) ; see Fors 
XLII., p. 125. 



72 ST. mark's rest. 

sucli as wisest men are not nnliable to, ^Yith the strongest 
• — Solomon, Samson, Hercules, Merlin the Magician. 

Liking pretty things, how could he help liking pretty 
ladies ? He married a Greek maid, wdio came with new 
and strange light on Venetian eyes, and left wild fame of 
herself: how, every morning, she sent her handmaidens to 
gather the dew for her to wash with, waters of earth being 
not pure enough. So, through lapse of fifteen hundred 
yearr, descended into her Greek heart that worship in the 
Temple of the Dew. 

Of this queen's extreme luxury, and the miraculousness 
of it in the eyes of sinrple Yenice, many traditions are 
current among later historians ; which, nevertheless, I 
find resolve themselves, on closer inquiry, into an appalled 
record of the fact that she would actually not cat her meat 
with her fingers, but applied it to her mouth with '^ certain 
two-pronged instruments " '•' (of gold, indeed, but the 
luxurious sill, in Venetian eyes, was evidently not in the 
metal, but the fork) ; and that she indulged herself greatly 
in the use of perfumes : especially about her bed, for 
wdiich whether to praise her, as one would an English 
housewife for sheets laid up in lavender, or to cry haro 
upon her, as the " stranger who flattereth," f I know 
not, until I know better the reason of the creation of per- 
fume itself, and of its use in Eastern religion and delight 
— " All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia, out 
of the ivory palaces whereby thou hast made me glad " — 
fading and corruptiug at last into the incense of the mass, 
and the extrait de Mille-jleurs of Bond Street. What I do 

* Cibos digitis non tangebat, sed quibusdam fuscinulis aureis et 
bidentibus suo ori aj)plicabat." (Petrus Damianus, quoted by Dandolo.) 
f Proverbs vii., 5 and 17. 



VII. DIVIXE EIGHT. 73 

know is, that there was no more sacred sight to me, in 
ancient Florence, than the Spezieria of the Monks of Santa 
Maria Novella, Avith its precious vials of sweet odors, each 
illuminated with the little picture of the flower from wliich 
it had truly been distilled — and yet, that, in its loaded air 
one remembered that the flowers had grown in the fields 
of the Decameron. 

But this also I know, and more surely, that the beauti- 
ful work done in St. Mark's during' the Greek girl's reii^n 
in Venice first interpreted to her people's hearts, and 
made legible to their eyes, the law of Christianity in its 
eternal harmony with the lav/s of the Jew and of the 
Greek: and gave them the glories of Yenetian art in true 
inheritance from the angels of that Athenian Rock, above 
which Ion spread his starry tapestry,"^ and under whoce 
shadow his mother had gathered the crocus in the dew. 



* I have myself learned more of the real meaning of Greek myths 
from Euripides than from any other Greek writer, except Pindar. 
But I do not at present know of any English rhythm interpretino- him 
riorhtly — these poor sapless measures must serve my turn — (Wodh nil's : 
1778.) 

" The sacred tapestry 

Then taking from the treasures of the God, 

He cover'd o'er the whole, a wondrous sight 

To all beholders : first he o'er the roof 

Threw robes, which Hercules, the son of Jove, 

To Phoebus at his temple brought, the spoils 

Of vanquished Amazons ; 

On which these pictures by the loom were wrought ; 

Heaven in its vast circumference all the stars 

Assembling ; there his courses too the Sun 

Impetuous drove, till ceas'd his waning flame, 

And with him drew in his resplendent train, 



74: ST. mark's rest. 

Vesper's clear light ; then clad in sable garb 

Night hasteu'd ; hastening stars accompanied 

Their Goddess ; through mid-air the Pleiades, 

And with his falchion arm'd, Orion mov'd. 

But the sides he covered 

With yet more tapestry, the Barbaric fleet 

To that of Greece opposed, was there display'd ; 

Follow'd a monstrous brood, half horse, half man, 

The Thracian monarch's furious steeds subdu'd, 

And lion of Nemaja. " 

" ... Underneath those craggy rocks, 

North of Minerva's citadel (the kings 

Of Athens call them Macra), . . . 

Thou cam'st, resplendent with thy golden hair, 

As I the crocus gathered, in my robe 

Each vivid flower assembling, to compose 

Garlands of fragrance." 

The composition of fragrant garlands out of crocuses being however 
Mr. Michael Wodhull's improvement on Euripides. Creusa's words are 
literally, *' Thou camest, thy hair flashing with gold, as I let fall the 
crocus petals, gleaming gold back again, into my robe at my bosom." 
Into the folds of it, across her breast ; as an English girl would have 
let them fall into her lap. 



THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

ON THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES AND 
PRACTICE OF 

DRAWING AND PAINTING. 

AS DETERMINED BY THE TUSCAN MASTERS. 
ARRANGED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS, 



BT 

JOHN RUSK IN, LL.D., 

BONOBARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AXD- 8LADE PEOFKSSOK OF FINK ART, OXFORD. 



IPJ^DBT X. 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN WILEY & SONS, 

15 AsTOR Place. 

1877. 



^>; 



S. W. GREEN, 

Printer and Electrotvpkk, 

16 & 18 Jacob Street, 

New York. 






PREFACE 



The ]3ublication of tins book has been delayed by 
wliat seemed to me vexatious accident, or (on my own 
part) . unaccountable slowness in work : but the delay 
thus enforced has enabled me to bring the whole into a 
form which I do not think there will be any reason after- 
wards to modify in any important particular, containing 
a system of instruction in art generally applicable in the 
education of gentlemen ; and securely elementary in that 
of professional artists. It has been made as simple as I 
can in expression, and is specially addressed, in the main 
teaching of it, to young people (extending the range of 
that term to include students in our universities) ; and it 
will be so addressed to them, that if they have not the 
advantage of being near a master, they may teach them- 
selves, by careful reading, what ia essential to their 
progress. But I have added always to such initial princi- 
ples, those which it is desirable to state for the guidance 
of advanced scholars, or the explanation of tlie practice 
of exemplary masters. 

The exercises given in this book, when their series is. 



IV PREFACE. 

completed, will form a code of practice whicli may advisa- 
bly be rendered imperative on tlie youth of both sexes 
who show disposition for drawing. In general, youths 
and girls who do not wish to draw should not be com- 
pelled to draw ; but when natural disposition exists, 
strong enough to render wholesome discipline endurable 
with patience, every well- trained youth and girl ought to 
be taught the elements of drawing, as of music, early, 
and accurately. 

To teach them inaccurately is indeed, strictly speaking, 
not to teach them at all ; or worse than that, to prevent 
the possibility of their ever being taught. The ordinary 
methods of water-color sketching, chalk drawing, and 
the like, now so widely taught by second-rate masters, 
simply prevent the pupil from ever understanding the 
qualities of great art, through the whole of his after-life. 

It will be found also that the system of practice here 
proposed differs in many points, and in some is directly 
adverse, to that which has been for some years instituted 
in our public schools of art. It might be supposed that 
this contrariety was capricious or presumptuous, unless 
I gave my reasons for it, by specifying the errors of the 
existing popular system. 

The first error in that system is the forbidding accuracy 
of measurement, and enforcing the practice of guessing at 
the size of objects. 'Now it is indeed often well to outline 
at first by the eye, and afterwards to correct the drawing by 
measurement ; but under the present method, the student 



PREFACE. V 

finishes his inaccurate drawing to the end, and liis mind 
is thns, during the whole progress of his Avork, accus- 
tomed to falseness in every contour. Such a practice is 
not to be characterized as merely harmful, — it is ruinous. 
'No student who has sustained the injurj^ of being thus 
accustomed to false contours, can ever recover precision 
of sight. I^or is this all : he cannot so much as attain 
to the first conditions of art judgment. For a fine work 
of art differs from a vulgar one by subtleties of line which 
the most perfect measurement is not, alone, delicate 
enough to detect ; but to wdiich precision of attempted 
measurement directs the attention ; while tlie security of 
boundaries, within which maximum error must be re- 
strained, enables the hand gradually to approach the j)er- 
fectness which instruments cannot. Gradually, the mind 
then becomes conscious of the beautv wdiich, even after 
this honest effort, remains inimitable ; and the faculty of 
discrimination increases alike through failure and success. 
But when tlie true contours are voluntarily and habitu- 
ally departed from, the essential qualities of every beauti- 
ful form are necessarily lost, and the student remains 
forever unaware of their existence. 

The second error in the existing system is the enforce- 
ment of the execution of finished drawings in light and 
shade, before the student has acquired delicacy of sight 
enough to observe their gradations. It requires the 
most careful and patient teaching to develop this faculty; 
and it can only be developed at all by rapid and various 



VI PREFACE. 

practice from natural objects, during which the attention 
of the student must be directed only to the facts of tlie 
shadows themselves, and not at all arrested on methods 
of producing them. He may even be allowed to produce 
tliem as he likes, or as he can ; the thing required of him 
being only that the shade be of the right darkness, of tlie 
right shape, and in the right relation to other shades 
round it; and not at all that it shall be prettily cross- 
hatched, or deceptively transparent. But at present, the 
only virtues required in shadow are that it shall be pretty 
in texture and picturesquely effective; and it is not 
thought of the smallest consequence that it should be in 
the right place, or of the right depth. And the conse- 
quence is that the student remains, when he becomes a 
painter, a mere manufacturer of conventional shadows of 
agreeable texture, and to the end of his life incapable of 
perceiving the conditions of the simplest natural passage 
of chiaroscuro. 

The third error in the existing code, and in ultimately 
destructive power, the worst, is the construction of en- 
tirely symmetrical or balanced forms for exercises in 
ornamental design ; whereas every beautiful form in this 
world, is varied in the minutiae of the balanced sides. 
Place the most beautiful of human forms in exact sym- 
metry of position, and curl the hair into equal curls on 
both sides, and it will become ridiculous, or monstrous. 
iTor can any law of beauty be nobly observed without 
occasional wilfulness of violation. 



PREFACE. VU 

The moral effect of tliese monstrous conditions of 
ornament on the mind of the modern designer is very 
singular. I have found, in past experience in the Work- 
ing Men's College, and recently at Oxford, that the 
English student must at present of necessity be inclined 
to one of two opposite errors, equally fatal. Either he 
will draw things mechanically and symmetrically alto- 
gether, and represent the two sides of a leaf, or of a plant, 
as if he had cut them in one profile out of a doubled piece 
of paper ; or he will dash and scrabble for effect, without 
obedience to law of any kind : and I find the greatest 
difficulty, on the one hand, in making ornamental 
draughtsmen draw a leaf of any shape w^hich it could 
possibly have lived in ; and, on the other, in making land- 
scape draughtsmen draw a leaf of any shape at all. So 
that the process by which great work is achieved, and by 
which only it can be achieved, is in both directions an- 
tagonistic to the present English mind. Real artists are 
absolutely submissive to law, and absolutely at ease in 
fancy ; while we are at once wilful and dull ; resolved to 
have our owm way, but when we have got it, we cannot 
walk two yards without holding by a railing. 

The tap-root of all this mischief is in the endeavor to 
produce some ability in the student to make money by 
desi2:nin2: for manufacture. Ko student who makes this 
his primary object will ever be able to design at all : and 
the very words " School of Design" involve the profound- 
est of Art fallacies. Drawing may be taught by tutors : 



Vlll PREFACE. 

but Design only by Heaven ; and to every scholar who 
thinks to sell his inspiration, Heaven refuses its help. 

To what kind of scholar, and on what conditions, that 
help has been given hitherto, and may yet be hoped for, 
is written with unevadable clearness in the history ot' 
the Arts of the Past. And this book is called " The Laws 
of Fesole" because the entire system of possible Christian 
Art is founded on the principles established by Giotto in 
Florence, he receiving them from the Attic Greeks 
through Cimabue, the last of their disciples, and engraft- 
ing them on the existing art of the Etruscans, the race 
from which both his master and he were descended. 

In the centre of Florence, the last great work of native 
Etruscan architecture, her Baptistery, and the most perfect 
work of Christian architecture, her Campanile, stand 
within a hundred paces of each other : and from the foot 
of that Campanile, the last conditions of design which 
preceded the close of Christian art are seen in the dome 
of Brunelleschi. Under the term " laws of Fesole," there- 
fore, may be most strictly and accurately arranged every 
principle of art, practised at its purest source, from the 
twelfth to the fifteenth century inclusive. And the pur- 
pose of this book is to teacli our English students of art 
the elements of these Christian laws, as distinguished 
from the Infidel laws of the spuriously classic school, 
under which, of late, our students have been exclusively 
trained. 

Nevertheless, in this book the art of Giotto and An- 



PEEFACE. IX 

gelico is not tanglit because it is Cliristian, but because it 
is absolutely true and good : neither is the Infidel art of 
Palladio and Giulio Romano forbidden because it is 
Pagan ; but because it is false and bad ; and has entirely 
destroyed not only our English schools of art, but all 
others in which it has ever been taught, or trusted in. 

Whereas the methods of draughtsmanship established 
bv the Florentines, in true fulfilment of Etruscan and 
Greek tradition, are insuperable in execution, and eternal 
in principle ; and all that I shall have occasion here to add 
to them will be only sach methods of their application to 
landscape as were not needed in the day of their first in- 
vention ; and such explanation of their elementary prac- 
tice as, in old time, was given orally by the master. 

It will not be possible to give a sufficient number of 
examples for advanced students (or on the scale necessary 
for some purposes) within the compass of this hand-book ; 
and I shall publish therefore together with it, as I can 
prepare them, engravings or lithographs of the examples 
in my Oxford schools, on folio sheets, sold separately. 
But this hand-book will contain all that was permanently 
valuable in my former Elements of Drawing, together 
with such further guidance as my observance of the result 
of those lessons has shown me to be necessary. The 
w^ork will be completed in twelve numbers, each contain- 
ing at least two engravings, the whole forming, when 
completed, tv>ro volumes of the ordinary size of my pub- 
lished works ; the first, treating mostly of drawing, for 



X PREFACE. 

beginners; and the second, of color, for advanced pupils. 
I hope also that I may prevail on the author of the excel- 
lent little treatise on Mathematical Instruments (Weale's 
Rudimentary Series, J^o. 82), to publish a lesson-book 
with about one-fourth of the contents of that formidably 
comprehensive volume, and in larger print, for the use of 
students of art ; omitting therefrom the descriptions of 
instruments useful only to engineers, and v/ithout forty- 
eight pages of advertisements at the end of it. Which, 
if I succeed in persuading him to do, I shall be able to 
make j)ermanent reference to his pages for elementary 
lessons on construction. 

Many other things I meant to say, and advise, in this 
Preface ; but find that were I to fulfil such intentions, my 
Preface would become a separate book, and had better 
therefore end itself forthwith, only desiring the reader to 
observe, in sum, that the degree of success, and of 
pleasure, which he will finally achieve, in these or any 
other art exercises on a sound foundation, will virtuallv 
depend on the degree in which he desires to understand 
the merit of others, and to make his own talents perma- 
nently useful. The folly of most amateur work is chiefly 
in its selfishness, and self-contemplation ; it is far better 
not to be able to draw at all, than to waste life in the ad- 
miration of one's own littlenesses; — or, worse, to with- 
draw, by merely amusing dexterities, the attention of 
other persons from noble art. It is impossible that the 
performance of an amateur can ever be otherwise than 



PREFACE. XI 

feeble in itself; and the virtue of it consists only in 
having enabled the student, by the effect of its production, 
to form true principles of judgment, and direct his limited 
powers to useful purposes. 

Brantwood, dist July, 1877. 



THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 



CIIAPTEE I. 

ALL GKEAT AKT IS PEAISE. 

1. The art of man is tlie expression of liis ration^ and 
disciplined delight in tlie forms and laAvs of tlie creaBon 
of which he forms a part. 

2. In all first definitions of very great things, there 
must be some obscurity and want of strictness ; the at- 
tempt to make them too strict will only end in wider 
obscurity. "We may indeed express to our friend the 
rational and disciplined pleasure we have in a landscape, 
yet not be artists : but it is true, nevertheless, that all art 
is the skilful expression of such pleasure ; not always, it 
may be, in a thing seen, but only in a law felt ; yet still, 
examined accurately, always in the Creation, of which 
the creature forms a part ; and not in itself merely. 
Thus a lamb at play, rejoicing in its own life only, is not 
an artist ; — but the lamb's shepherd, carving the aiece of . 
timber which he lays for his door-lintel into beads, is ex- 
pressing, however unconsciously, his pleasure in the laws 
of time, measure, and order, by which the earth moves, 
and the sun abides in heaven. 



2 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

3. So far as reason governs, or discipline restrains, the 
art even of animals, it becomes human, in those vir- 
tues; hut never, I believe, perfectly human, because it 
never, so far as I have seen, expresses even an nncon- 
scions delight in divine laws. A niditino-ale's sonjr is 
indeed exquisitely divided; but only, it seems to me, as 
the ripples of a stream, by a law of which tlie waters and 
the bird are alike nnconscious. Tlie bird is conscious 
indeed of joy and love, which the waters are not; but 
(tlianks be to God) joy and love are not Arts ; nor arc 
they limited to Humanity. But the loye-so?ig becomes 
Art, when, by reason and discipline, the singer has be- 
come conscious of the ravishment in its divisions to the 
lute. 

4. Farther to complete the range of our definition, it is 
to be remembered that we express our delight in a beau- 
tiful or lovely thing no less by lament for its loss, than 
gladness in its presence, much art is therefore tragic or 
pensive ; but all true art is praise.* 

5. There is no exception to this great law, for even 

* As soon as tlie artist forgets his function of praise in that of imita- 
tion, his art is lost. His business is to give, by any means, however 
imperfect, the idea of a beautiful thing ; not, by any means, however 
perfect, the realization of an ugly one. In the early and vigorous days 
of Art, she endeavored to praise the saints, though she made but 
awkward figures of them. Gradually becoming able to represent the 
human body with accuracy, she pleased herself greatly at first in this 
new power, and for about a century decorated all her buildings with 
human bodies in different positions. But there was nothing to be 
praised in persons who had no other virtue than that of possessing 
bodies, and no other means of expression than unexpected manners of 
crossing their legs. Surprises of this nature necessarily have their 
limits, and the Arts founded on Anatomy expired when the changes of 
posture were exhausted. 



I. ALL GREAT ART IS PRAISE. 3 

caricature is only artistic in conception of the beauty of 
which it exaggerates the absence. Caricature by persons 
who cannot conceive beauty, is monstrous in proportion 
to that dulness ; and, even to the best artists, persever- 
ance in the habit of it is fatal. 

6. Fix, then, this in your mind as the guiding princi- 
ple of all right practical labor, and source of all healthful 
life energy, — that your art is to be the praise of some- 
thing that you love. It may be only the praise of a 
shell or a stone ; it may be the praise of a hero ; it may 
be tlie praise of God : your rank as a living creature is 
determined by the lieight and breadth of your love ; but, 
be you small or great, what healthy art is possible to you 
must be the expression of your true delight in a real 
thing, better than the art. You may think, perhaps, 
that a bird's nest by William Hunt is better than a real 
bird's nest. We indeed pay a large sum for the one, and 
scarcely care to look for, or save, the other. But it would 
be better for us that all the pictures in the world per- 
ished, than that the birds should cease to build nests. 

And it is precisely in its expression of this inferiority 
that the drawing itself becomes valuable. It is because 
a photograph cannot condemn itself, that it is worthless. 
The glory of a great picture is in its shame ; and the 
charm of it, in speaking the pleasure of a great heart, 
that there is something better than picture. Also it 
speaks with the voices of many : the efforts of thousands 
dead, and their passions, are in the pictures of their chil- 
dren to-day. Isot w^ith the skill of an hour, nor of a life, 
nor of a century, but with the help of numberless souls, a 
beautiful thing must be done. And the obedience, and 
the understanding, and the pure natural passion, and the 



4 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

perseverance, in secula seculorum, as they must be given 
to produce a picture, so tliey must be recognized, that we 
may perceive one. 

T. This is the main lesson I have been teaching, so far 
as I have been able, through my whole life : Only that 
picture is noble, which is painted in love of the reality. 
It is a law which embraces the highest scope of Art ; it 
is one also which guides in security the first steps of it. 
If you desire to draw, that you may represent some- 
thing that you care for, you will advance swiftly and safely. 
If you desire to draw, that you may make a beautiful 
drawing, you will never make one. 

8. And this simplicity of purpose is farther useful in 
closing all discussions of the respective grace or admira- 
bleness of method. The best painting is that which 
most completely represents what it undertakes to repre- 
sent, as the best language is that which most clearly says 
what it undertakes to say. 

9. Griven the materials, the limits of time, and the con- 
ditions of place, there is only one proper method of 
painting.* And since, if painting is to be entirely good, 
the materials of it must be the best possible, and the con- 
ditions of time and place entirely favorable, there is only 
one manner of entirely good painting. The so-called 
* styles ' of artists are either adaptations to imperfections 
of material, or indications of imperfection in their own 
power, or the knowledge of their day. The great 

* In sculpture, the materials are necessarily so varied, and the cir- 
cumstances of place so complex, that it would seem like an affected 
stretching of principle to say there is only one proper method of sculp- 
ture : yet this is also true, and any handling of marble differing from 
that of Greek workmen is inferior by such difference 



I. ALL GKEAT AET IS PRAISE. 5 

painters are like each otlier in tlieir strength, and diverse 
only in weakness. 

10. The last aphorism is true even with respect to the 
dispositions which induce the preference of particular 
characters in the subject. Perfect art perceives and re- 
flects the whole of nature : imperfect art is fastidious, 
and impertinently prefers and rejects. The foible of 
Correggio is grace, and of Mantegna, precision : Veron- 
ese is narrow in his gayety, Tintoret in his gloom, and 
Tnrner in his light. 

11. But, if we hioia our weakness, it becomes our 
strength ; and the joy of every painter, by which lie is 
made narrow, is also the gift by which he is made de- 
lightful, so Ions: as he is modest in the thou2:ht of his dis- 
tinction from others, and no less severe in the indulgence, 
than careful in the cultivation, of his proper instincts. 
Itecognizing his place, as but one quaintly-veined pebble 
in the various pavement, — one richly-fused fragment, in 
the vitrail of life, — he will find, in his distinctness, his 
glory and his use ; but destroys himself in demanding 
that all men should stand within his compass, or see 
through his color. 

12. The differences in style instinctively caused by per- 
sonal character are however of little practical moment, 
compared to those which are rationally adopted, in adap- 
tation to circumstance. 

Of these variously conventional and inferior modes of 
work, we will examine such as deserve note in their 
proper place. But we must begin by learning the man- 
ner of work which, from the elements of it to the end, is 
completely right, and common to all the masters of con- 



6 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

siimmate schools. In whom these two great conditions of 
excellence are always discernible, — that they conceive 
more beautiful things than they can paint, and desire 
only to be praised in so far as they can represent these, 
for subjects of higher praising. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE THREE DIVISIONS OF THE AKT OF PAINTING. 

1. In order to produce a completely representative 
picture of any object on a flat surface, we must outline it, 
color it, and shade it. Accordingly, in order to become a 
complete artist, you must learn these three following 
modes of skill completely. First, how to outline spaces 
with accurate and delicate lines. Secondly, how to fill 
the outlined spaces with accurate, and delicately laid, 
color. Thirdly, how to gradate the colored spaces, so as 
to express, accurately and delicately, relations of light 
and shade. 

2. By the word ^ accurate ' in these sentences, I mean 
nearly the same thing as if I had written ' true ;' but 
yet I mean a little more than verbal trutli : for in many 
cases, it is possible to give the strictest truth in words 
without any painful care ; but it is not possible to be true 
in lines, without constant care or accuracy. We may 
say, for instance, without laborious attention, that the 
tower of Garisenda is a hundred and sixty feet high, and 
leans nine feet out of the perpendicular. But we could 
not draw the line representing this relation of nine feet 
horizontal to a hundred and sixty vertical, without ex- 
treme care. 

In other cases, even by the strictest attention, it is not 
possible to give complete or strict truth in words. We 



8 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

could not, by any number of words, describe the color of 
a riband so as to enable a mercer to match it without see- 
ing it. But an ' accurate ' colorist can convey the re- 
quired intelligence at once, with a tint on paper. Neither 
would it be possible, in language, to explain the difference 
in gradations of shade which the eye perceives between a 
beautifully rounded and dimpled chin, and a more or less 
determinedly angular one. But on the artist's ' accuracy ' 
in distinguishing and representing their relative depths, 
not in one feature only, but in the harmony of all, depend 
his powers of expressing the charm of beauty, or the 
force of character ; and his means of enabling us to know 
Joan of Arc from Fair Kosamond. 

3. Of these three tasks, outline, color, and shade, out- 
line, in perfection, is the most difficult ; but students 
must begin with that task, and are masters when they 
can see to the end of it, though they never reach it. 

To color is easy if you can see color ; and impossible if 
you cannot.* 

To shade is very difficult ; and the perfections of light 
and shadow have been rendered by few masters ; but in 
the degree sufficient for good work, it is within the reach 
of every student of fair capacity who takes pains. 

5. The order in which students usually learn these 
three processes of art is in the inverse ratio of their diffi- 
culty. They begin with outline, proceed to shade, and 
conclude in color. While, naturally, any clever house 
decorator can color, and any patient Academy pupil 
shade ; but Kaphael at his full strength is plagued with 

* A great many people do not know green from red ; and such kind 
of persons are apt to feel it tlieir duty to write scientific treatises on 
color, edifying to the art-world. 



II. THE THREE DIVISIONS OF PAINTING. 9 

his outline, and tries lialf a dozen backwards and forwards 
before be pricks bis cbosen one down.* 

l^evertbeless, botb tbe other exercises should be prac- 
tised with this of outline, from the beginning. We onust 
outline the space which is to be filled with color, or ex- 
plained by shade ; but we cannot handle the brush too 
soon, nor too long continue the exercises of the lead f 
point. Every system is imperfect which pays more than 
a balanced and equitable attention to any one of the three 
skills, for all are necessary in equal perfection to the com- 
pleteness of power. There will indeed be found great 
differences between the faculties of different pupils to ex- 
press themselves by one or other of these methods ; and 
the natural disposition to give character by delineation, 
charm by color, or force by shade, may be discreetly en- 
couraged by the master, after moderate skill has been 
attained in the collateral exercises. But the first condi- 
tion of steady progress for every pupil — no matter what 
their gifts, or genius — is that they should be taught to 
draw a calm and true outline, entirely decisive, and ad- 
mitting no error avoidable by patience and attention. 

7. We will begin therefore with the simplest conceiv- 
able practice of this skill, taking for subject the two ele- 
mentary forms which the shepherd of Fesole gives us 
(Fig. 1), supporting the desk of the master of Geometry. 

You will find the original bas-relief represented very 
sufficiently in the nineteenth of the series of photographs 
trom the Tower of Giotto, and may thus for yourself 
ascertain the accuracy of this outline, which otherwise 

* Beautiful and true shade caii be produced by a macbine fitted to 
tbe surface, but no machine can outline. 
f See explanation of term, p. 26. 



10 



THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 



yon might suppose careless, in tliat the snggested sqnare 
is not a true one, having two acute and two obtuse angles ; 
nor is it set npright, but with the angle on your right 
hand higher than the opposite one, so as partly to comply 
with the slope of the desk. But this is one of the first 
signs that the sculpture is by a master's hand. And the 
first thing a modern restorer would do, would be to " cor- 




FlG. 1. 



rect the mistake," and give you, instead, the, to him, more 
satisfactory arrangement. (Fig. 2.) 

8. We must not, however, permit ourselves, in the be- 
ginning of days, to draw inaccurate squares ; such liberty 
is only the final reward of obedience, and the generous 
breaking of law, only to be allowed to the loyal. | 

Take your compasses, therefore, and your ruler, and 
smooth paper over which your pen will glide nnchecked. 
And take above all things store of patience ; and then, — 
but for what is to be done then, the directions had best be 



II. THE THREE DIVISIONS OF PAINTING. 



11 



reserved to a fresh chapter, wliich, as it will begin a group 
of exercises of which you will not at once perceive the in- 




FiG. 2. 

tcntion, had better, I think, be preceded by this following 
series of general aphorisms, which I wrote for a young 
Italian painter, as containing what was likely to be most 
useful to him in briefest form ; and which for the same 
reason I here give, before entering on specific practice. 



APHORISMS. 



I. 

The greatest art represents every thing with absolute 
sincerity, as far as it is able. But it chooses the best 
things to represent, and it j)laces them in the best order 
in which they can be seen. You can only judge of what 
is hesf, in process of time, by the bettering of your own 
character. What is true, you can learn now, if you will. 



12 ' THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

II. 

Make your studies always of the real size of things. A 
man is to be drawn the size of a man, and a cherry the 
size of a cherry. 

^ But I cannot draw an elephant his real size ' ? 

There is no occasion for you to draw an elephant. 

' But nobody can draw Mont Blanc his real size ' ? 

'No. Therefore nobody can draw Mont Blanc at all ; 
but only a distant view of Mont Blanc. You may also 
draw a distant view of a man, and of an elephant, if you 
like ; but you must take care that it is seen to be so, and 
not mistaken for a drawing of a pigmy, or a mouse, near. 

' But there is a great deal of good miniature painting ' ? 

Yes, and a great deal of fine cameo-cutting. But I am 
going to teach you to be a painter, not a locket-decorator, 
or medallist. 

III. 

Direct all your first efforts to acquire the power of 
drawing an absolutely accurate outline of any object, of 
its real size, as it aj)pears at a distance of not less than 
twelve feet from the eye. All greatest art represents 
objects at not less than this distance; because you cannot 
see the full stature and action of a man if you go nearer* 
him. The difference between the appearance of any 
thing — say a bird, fruit, or leaf — at a distance of twelve 
feet or more, and its appearance looked at closely, is the 
first difference also between Titian's painting of it, and a 
Dutchman's. 

IV. 

Do not think, by learning the nature or structure of a 
thing, that you can learn to draw it. Anatomy is neces- 



APHORISMS. 13 

saiy in the education of surgeons ; botany in that of 
ajDothecaries ; and geology in that of miners. But none 
of the three will enable you to draw a man, a flower, or a 
mountain. You can learn to do that only by looking at 
them ; not by cutting them to pieces. And don't think 
you can paint a peach, because you know there's a stone 
inside ; nor a face, because you know a skull is. 

V. 

l^axt to outlining things accurately, of their true form, 
you must learn to color them delicately, of their true 
color. 

TI. 

If you can match a color accurately, and lay it deli- 
cately, you are a painter ; as, if you can strike a note 
surely, and deliver it clearly, you are a singer. You may 
then choose what you will paint, or what you will sing. 

YII. 

A pea is green, a cherry red, and a blackberry black, 
all round. 

vin. 

Every light is a shade, compared to higher lights, till 
you come to the sun ; and every shade is a light, compared 
to deeper shades, till you come to the night. When, 
therefore, you have outlined any space, you have no i*eason 
to ask whether it is in light or shade, but only, of what 
color it is, and to what depth of that color. 

IX. 

You will be told that shadow is gray. But Correggio, 
when he has to shade with one color, takes red chalk. 



14 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

X. 

Yon will be told that blue is a retiring color, because 
distant mountains are blue. The sun setting behind 
them is nevertheless farther off, and you must paint it 
with red or yellow. 

XI. 

" Please paint me my white cat," said little Imelda. 
" Child," answered the Bolognese Professor, " in the 
grand school, all cats are gray." 

XII. 

Fine weather is pleasant ; but if yonr pictm'e is beau- 
tiful, people will not ask whether the sun is out or in. 

XIII. 

When you speak to your friend in the street, you take 
him into the shade. When you wish to think you can 
sjDeak to him in your picture, do the same. 

XIV. 

Be economical in every thing, but especially in candles. 
When it is time to light them, go to bed. But the worst 
waste of them is drawing by them. 

XV. 

Never, if you can help it, miss seeing the sunset and 
the dawn. And never, if you can help it, see any thing 
but dreams between them. 



APHORISMS. 15 

XVI. 

'A fine picture, you sayT "The finest j)ossible; St. 
Jerome, and his lion, and his arm-chair. St. Jerome was 
painted by a saint, and the Lion by a hunter, and the 
chair by an upholsterer." 

My compliments. It must be very fine; but I do not 
care to see it. 

XYII. 

' Three pictures, you say ? and by Carpaccio ! ' '' Yes — 
St. Jerome, and his lion, and his arm-chair. Which will 
you see f ' ' What does it matter ? The one I can see 
soonest.' 

XYIII. 

Great painters defeat Death ; the vile, adorn him, and 
adore. 

XIX. 

If the picture is beautiful, copy it as it is ; if ugly, let 
it alone. Only Heaven, and Death, know what it teas. 

XX. 

* The King has presented an Etruscan vase, the most 
beautiful in the world, to the Museum of I^aples. What 
a pity I cannot draw it ! ' 

In the meantime, the housemaid has broken a kitchen 
tea-cup ; let me see if you can draw one of the pieces. 

XXI. 

When you would do your best, stop, the moment you 
begin to feel difiiculty. Your drawing will be the best 



16 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

you can do ; but you will uot be able to do another so 
good to-moiTow. 



XXII. 



When you would do hetter than your best, put your 
full strength out, the moment you feel a difficulty. You 
will spoil your drawing to-day ; but you will do better 
than your to-day's best, to-morrow. 



XXIII. 



" The enemy is too strong for me to-day," said the wise 
young general. " I won't light him ; but I won't lose 
siffht of him." 



'to' 

XXIV. 



" I can do what I like with my colors, now," said the 
proud young scholar. " So could I, at your age," 
answered the master ; '' but now, I can only do what 
other people like." 



CHAPTER III. 

first exercise in eight lines, the quartering of st. 

George's shield. 

1. Take your compasses,* and measuring an inch on 
your ivoiy rule, mark that dimension by the two dots at 
B and C (see the uppermost figure on the left in Plate 
1), and with your black ruler draw a straight line betw^een 
them, w^ith a fine steel pen and common ink.f Then mea- 
sure the same length, of an inch, down from B, as nearly 
perpendicular as you can, and mark the point A ; and 
divide the height A B into four equal parts with the com- 
passes, and mark them with dots, drawing every dot as a 
neatly circular point, clearly visible. This last finesse 
^vill be an essential part of your drawing practice ; it is 
very irksome to draw such dots patiently, and very diffi- 
cult to draw them well. 

Then mark, not now by measure, but by eye, the re- 
maining corner of the square, D, and divide the opposite 
side CD, by dots, opposite the others as nearly as you 

* I liavo not been able yet to devise a quite simple and sufficient case 
of drawing instruments for my schools. But, at all events, tlie com- 
plete instrument-case must include tlie ivory scale, tlie black j^arallel 
rule, a divided quadrant (wliich I will give a drawing of wlien it is 
wanted), one pair of simple compasses, and one fitted witk pen and 
pencil. 

f Any dark color that will wash oflf tlieir fingers may be prepared 
for children. 



18 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

can guess. Then draw four level lines without a ruler, 
and without raising your pen, or stopping, slowly, from 
dot to dot, across the square. The four lines altogether 
sliould not take less, — but not much more, — than a 
quarter of a minute in the drawing, or about four seconds 
each. Repeat this practice now and then, at leisure 
minutes, until you liave got an approximately well-drawn 
group of live lines; the 23oint D being successfully put 
in accurate corner of the square. Then similarly divide 
the lines A D and B C, by the eye, into four parts, and 
complete the figure as on the right hand at the top of 
Plate 1, and test it by drawing diagonals across it through 
the corners of the squares, till you can draw it true. 

2. Contenting yourself for some time with this square 
of sixteen quarters for hand practice, draw also, with ex- 
tremest accuracy of measurement possible to you, and 
finely ruled lines such as those in the plate, the inch 
square, with its side sometimes divided into three parts, 
sometimes into five, and sometimes into six, completing 
the interior nine, twenty-five, and thirty-six squares with 
utmost 2)i*ecision ; and do not be satisfied with these till 
diagonals afterwards drawn, as in the figure, pass pre- 
cisely through the angles of the square. 

Then, as soon as you can attain moderate precision in 
instrumental drawing, construct the central figure in the 
plate, drawing, first the square ; then, the lines of the 
horizontal bar, from the midmost division of the side 
divided into five. Then draw the curves of the shield, 
from the uppermost corners of the cross-bar, for cen- 
tres ; then the vertical bar, also one-fifth of the square 
in breadth; lastly, find the centre of the square, and 
draw the enclosing circle, to test the precision of all. 



III. FIRST EXERCISE IN RIGHT LINES. 19 

More advanced pupils may draw tlie inner line to mark 
thickness of shield ; and L'ghtl j tint the cross with rose- 
color. 

In the lower part of the plate is a first study of a 
feather, for exercise later on ; it is to be copied with a 
iine steel pen and common ink, having been so drawn with 
decisive and visible lines, to form steadiness of hand." 

3. The feather is one of the smallest from the npper 
edge of a lien's w^ing; the pattern is obscure, and not 
so well adapted for practice as others to be given sub- 
sequently, but I like best to begin with this, under St. 
George's shield ; and whether yon can copy it or not, if 
you have any natural feeling for beauty of line, you will 
see, by comparing the two, that the shield form, mechani- 
cally constructed, is meagre and stiff; and also that it 
would be totally impossible to draw the curves which 
terminate the feather below by any mschanical law ; much 
less the various curves of its filaments. Nor can we draw 
even so simple a form as that of a shield beautifully, by 
instruments. But we may come nearer, by a more complex 
construction, to beautiful form ; and define at the same 
time the heraldic limits of the bearings. This finer 
method is given in Plate 2, on a scale twice as large, the 
shield being here two inches wide. And it is to be con- 
structed as follows. 

4. Draw the square A B C D, tAvo inches on the side, 

* The original drawings for all tliese plates will be put in the 
Sheffield Museum ; but if health remains to me, I will prepare others 
of the same kind, only of different subjects, for the other schools of St. 
George. The engravings, by Mr. Allen's good skill, will, I doubt not, 
be better than the originals for all practical purposes ; especially as my 
hand now shakes more than his, in small work. 



20 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

with its diagonals A C, B D, and the vertical P Q through 
its centre O ; and observe that, henceforward, I shall 
always nse the words ^ vertical ' for ' perpendicular,' and 
' level ' for ' horizontal,' being shorter, and no less accurate. 

Divide O Q, OP, each into three equal j)arts by the 
points, K, a ; N, d. 

Tlirouorh a and d draw the level lines, ciittinsr the dia- 
gonals in &, ^, <?, and f\ and produce 1) c, cutting the sides 
of the square in ')n and n, as far towards x and y as you 
see will be necessaiy. 

With centres 7)i and 7i, and the equal radii m a, n «, 
describe semicircles, cutting x y m x and y. With centres 
X and y, and the equal radii x n, y m, describe arcs ??^ Y, 
n Y, cutting each other and the line Q P, produced, in Y. 

Tlie precision of their concurrence will test your accu- 
racy of construction. 

5. The form of shield B C Y, thus obtained, is not a 
perfect one, because no perfect form (in the artist's sense 
of the word ' perf ectness ') can be drawn geometrically ; 
but it approximately represents the central type of Eng- 
lish shield. 

It is necessary for yon at once to learn the names of 
the nine points thus obtained, called 'honor-points,' by 
which the arrangement and measures of bearings are 
determined. 

All shields are considered heraldically to be square in 
the field, so that they can be divided accurately into quar- 
ters. 

I am not aware of any formerly recognized geometri- 
cal method of placing the honor-points in this field : that 
which I have here given will be found convenient for 
strict measurement of the proportions of bearings. 



III. FIRST EXERCISE IN RIGHT LINES. 21 

G. Considering the square A B C D as the field, and 
removing from it the lines of construction, the honor- 
points are seen in their proper places, in the lower part 
of the plate. 

These are their names, — 



a 


Middle Chief 


I 


Dexter Chief 


c 


Sinister Chief 


K 


Honor 





Fesse 


N 


Numbril 


d 


Middle Base 


e 


Dexter Base 


f 


Sinister Base 



^ point. 



I have placed these letters, with some trouble, as I 
think best for help of your memory. 

The <r, ^, c ; cl^ <?, y, are, I think, most conveniently 
placed in upper and under series : I could not, therefore, 
put y for the Fesse point, but the O aWII remind you of it 
as the sign for a belt or girdle. Then K will stand for 
knighthood, or the honor-point, and putting I^ for the 
numbril, wliich is otherwise difficult to remember, we 
have, reading down, the syllable KOK, the Teutonic be- 
ginning of KOXIG or King, all which may be easily re- 
membered. 

And now look at the first plate of the large Oxford 
series.* It is engraved from my free-hand drawing in 

* See notice of tbis series in Preface. 



22 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

the Oxford scliools ; and is to be copied, as that drawing 
is executed, with pencil and color. 

In which sentence I find myself face to face with a 
difficulty of expression which has long teased me, and 
which I must now conclusively, with the reader's good 
help, overcome. 

7. In all classical Eno-lish writins; on art, the word 
^2)encil,' in all classical French writing the word 'pinceau,' 
and in all classical Italian writing the word ' uennello,' 
means the painter's instrument, the brush.* 

It is entirely desirable to return, in England, to this 
classical use with constant accuracy, and resolutely to- call 
the black-lead pencil, the ' lead-crayon ;' or, for shortness, 
simply ' the lead.' In this book I shall generally so call 
it, saying, for instance, in the case of this diagram, " draw 
it first with the lead." ' Crayon,' from ' craie,' chalk, I 
shall use instead of ' chalk ;' meaning when I say black 
crayon, common black chalk ; and when I say white cra- 
yon, common white chalk ; while I shall use indiiferently 
the word ' pencil ' for the instrument whether of water- 
color or oil painting. 

8. Construct then the whole of this drawing, Plate 1, 
Oxford series, first with a light lead line ; then take an 
ordinary! camel's-hair pencil, and with free hand follow 



* The Latin 'penicilluni' originally meant a 'little tail,' as of tlie 
ermine. My friend Mr. Alfred Tylor informs me tliat Newton Avas 
the first to apply the word to light, meaning a pointed gronp of rays. 

f That is to say, not a particularly small one ; hut let it he of good 
quality. Under the conditions of overflowing wealth which reward 
our national manufacturing industry, I find a curious tendency in my 
pupils to study economy especially in colors and brushes. Every 
now and then 1 find a student using a brush which bends up when it 



III. FIRST :^ERCISE IN RIGHT LINES. 23 

tlic lead lines in color. Indian red is the color generally 
to be used for practice, being cheap and sufficiently dark, 
but lake or carmine work more pleasantly for a difficult 
exercise like this. 

9. In laying the color lines, you may go over and 
over again, to join them and make them even, as often 
as you like, but must not thicken the thin ones ; nor in- 
terrupt the thickness of the stronger outline so as to con- 
fuse them at all with each other. Griotto, Durer, or Man- 
tegna, would draw them at once without pause or visible 
error, as far as the color in the pencil lasted. Only two 
or three years ago I could nearly have done so myself, 
but my hand now shakes a little ; the drawing in the 
Oxford schools is however very little retouched over the 
first line. 

10. We will at this point leave our heraldry," because 



touclies tlie paper, and remains in tlie form of a fisli-hook. If I advise 
purchase of a better, lie — or she — says to me, " Can't I do something 
with this?" " 3^es, — something, certainly. Perhaps you may paste 
"with it ; but you can't draw. Suppose I was a fencing-master, and 
you told me you couldn't afford to buy a foil, — would you expect me 
to teach you to fence with a poker?" 

* Under the general influence of Mr. Gradgrind, there has been 
lately published a book of " Heraldry founded on facts " (The Pur- 
suivant of Arms, — Chatto & Windus), which is worth buying, for 
two reasons : the first, that its ' facts ' are entirely trustworthy and 
useful (well illustrated in minor woodcut also, and, many, very curi- 
ous and new) ; the second, that the writer's total ignorance of art, 
and his education among vulgar modernisms, have caused him to give 
figure illustrations, wherever lie draws either man or beast, as at pages 
C2 and lOG, whose horrible vulgarity will be of good future service as 
a type to us of the maximum in that particular. But the curves of 
shields are, throughout, admirably chosen and drawn, to the point 
mechanically possible. 



24: THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

we cannot better tlie form of our shield nntil we can draw 
lines of more perfect, that is to say, more varied and 
interesting, curvature, for its sides. And in order to do 
this we must learn how to construct and draw curves 
which cannot be drawn Avith any mathematical instru- 
ment, and yet whose course is perfectly determined. 



CHAPTEE lY. 

FIRST EXERCISE i:^ CURVE3. THE CIRCLE. 

1. Among tlie objects familiarly visible to us, and 
iisuallj regarded with sentiments of admiration, few are 
more classically representative of Giotto's second Hgure, 
inscribed in liis square, than that by common consent 
given by civilized nations to their pieces of money. We 
may, I hope, under fortunate augury, limit ourselves at 
first to the outline (as, in music, young students usually 
begin with the song) of Sixpence. 

2. Supposing you fortunate enough to possess the coin, 
may I ask you to lay it before you on a stiff card. Do 
you think it looks round ? . It does not, unless you look 
exactly down on it. But let us suppose you do so, and 
have to draw its outline under that simple condition. 

Take your pen, and do it then, beside the sixpence. 

" You cannot ?" 

Neither can I. Giotto could, and perhaps after work- 
ing due time under the laws of Fesole, you may be able 
to do it, too, approximately. If I were as young as you, 
I should at least encourage that hope. In the meantime 
you must do it ignominiously, w4th compasses. Take 
your pen -compasses, and draw with them a circle the size 
of a sixpence.* 

* Not all young students can even manage tlieir compasses ; and it 
is well to get over this difficulty with deliberate and immediate effort. 



26 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

3. When it is done, yon will not, I liope, be satisfied 
with it as the outline of a sixpence.*^ For, in the first 
place, it might just as well stand for the outline of the 
moon ; and in the second, though it is true, or accurate, in 
the mere quality of being a circle, either the space en- 
closed by the inner side of the black line must be smaller, 
or that enclosed by the outside larger, than the area of a 
sixpence. So the closer you can screw the compass-point, 
the better you will be pleased with your line : only it 
must always happen even with the most delicate line, so 
long as it has thickness at all, that its inner edge is too 
small, or its outer too large. It is best, tlierefore, that the 

Hold your compasses upriglit, and liglitly, "by tlie joint at tlie top ; fix 
one point quite firm, and carry the other round it any quantity of times 
without touching the paper, as if you were spinning a top without 
quitting hold of it. The fingers have to shift as the compasses re- 
volve ; and, when well practised, should do so without stopping, check- 
ing, or accelerating the motion of the point. Practise for five 
minutes at a time till you get skilful in this action, considering it 
equally disgraceful that the fixed point of the compasses should slip, or 
that it should bore a hole in the paper. After you are enough accus- 
tomed to the simple mechanism of the revolution, depress the second 
point, and draw any quantity of circles with it, large and small, till 
you can draw them throughout, continuously, with perfect ease. 

* If any student object to the continued contemplation of so vulgar 
- an object, I must pray him to observe that, vulgar as it may be, the 
idea of it is contentedly allowed to mingle with our most romantic 
ideals. I find this entry in my diary for 26th January, 1876 : "To 
Crystal Palace, through squalor and rags of declining Dulwich : very 
awful. In palace afterwards, with organ playing above its rows of 
ghastly cream-colored amphitheatre seats, with ' SIXPENCE ' in letters 
as large as the organist, — occupying the full field of sight below him. Of 
course, the names of Mendelssohn, Orpheus, Apollo, Julien, and other 
great composers, were painted somewhere in the panelling above. 
But the real inscription — meant to be practically, and therefore divine- 
ly, instructive— was 'SIXPENCE.' 



IV. FIRST EXERCISE IX CURVES. 27 

error should be divided between these two excesses, and 
that the centre of the line should coincide with the con- 
tour of the object. In advanced practice, however, out- 
line is properly to be defined as the narrowest portion 
which can be conveniently laid of a dark background 
round an object which is to be relieved in light, or of a 
light background round an object to be relieved in shade. 
The Yenetians often leave their first bright outlines 
gleaming round their dark figures, after the rest of the 
background has been added. 

4. The ijerfect virtue of an outline, therefore, is to be 
absohitely accurate with its inner edge, the outer edge 
being of no consequence. Thus the figures relieved in 
light on black Greek vases are first enclosed w^ith a line 
of thick black paint about the eighth of an inch broad, 
afterwards melted into the added background. 

In dark outline on white ground, however, it is often 
necessary to draw the extremities of delicate forms with 
lines which give the limit with their outer instead of their 
inner edge; else the features would become too large. 
Beautiful examples of this kind of w^ork are to be seen in 
face-drawing, especially of children, by Leech, and Du 
Maurier, in 'Punch.' 

Loose lines, doubled or trebled, are sometimes found in 
work by great, never by the greatest, masters ; but these 
are only tentative ; processes of experiment as to the 
direction in which the real outline is to be finally laid. 

5. The fineness of an outline is of course to be esti- 
mated in relation to the size of the object it defines. A 
chalk sketch on a wall may be a very subtle outline of a 
large picture ; though Holbein or Bewick would be able 
to draw a complete figure within the width of one of its 



28 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

lines. And, for your own practice, tlie simplest instru- 
ment is the best ; and the line drawn by any moderately 
well-cut quill pen, not crow quill, but sacred goose, is the 
means of all art which you have first to master ; and you 
may be sure that, in the end, your progress in all the 
highest skill of art will be swift in proportion to the pa- 
tience with which in the outset you persist in exercises 
which will finally enable you to draw with ease the out- 
line of any object of a moderate size (plainly visible, be 
it understood; and firmh^ terminated),''^" with an unerring 
and continuous pen line. 

6. And observe, once for all, there is never to be any 
scrawling, blotting, or splashing, in your work, with pen 
or any thing else. But especially with the pen, you are 
to avoid rapid motion, because you will be easily tempted 
to it. Kemember, therefore, that no line is well drawn 
unless you can stop your hand at any point of it you 
choose. On the other hand, the motion must be con- 
sistent and continuous, otherwise the line will not be 
even. 

7. It is not indeed possible to say with precision how 
fast the point may move, while yet the eye and fingers 
retain perfect attention and directing power over it. I 
have seen a great master's hand flying over the paper as 
fast as gnats over a pool ; and the ink left by the light 
grazing of it, so pale, that it gathered into shade like gray 
lead ; and yet the contours, and fine notes of character, 
seized with the accuracy of Holbein. But gift of this 
kind is a sign of the rarest artistic faculty and tact : you 

* By * firmly terminated/ I mean having an outline wliicli can be 
drawn, as that of your sixpence, or a hook, or a table. You can't out- 
line a bit of cotton wool, or the liame of a caudle. 



IV. FIRST EXERCISE IN CURVES. 29 

need not attempt to gain it, for if it is in yon, and yon 
work continnally, the power will come of itself ; and if it 
is not in yon, will never come ; nor, even if yon conld 
win it, is the attainment wholly desirable. Drawings tlins 
executed are always imperfect, however beantiful : they 
are out of harmony with the general manner and scheme 
of serviceable art ; and always, so far as I have observed, 
the sign of some deficiency of earnestness in the worker. 
Whatever your facult}^ may be, deliberate exercise will 
strengthen and confirm the good of it ; while, even if 
your natural gift for drawing be small, such exercise will 
at least enable yon to nnderstand and admire, both in 
art and nature, much that was before totally profitless 
or sealed to yon. 

8. We return, then, to our coin study. 'Now, if we are 
ever to draw a sixpence in a real picture, we need not 
think that it can always be done by looking down at it 
like a hawk, or a miser, about to pounce. We must be 
able to draw it lying anywhere, and seen from any dis- 
tance. 

So now raise the card, with the coin on it, slowly to 
the level of the eye, so as at last to look straight over its 
surface. As you do so, gradually the circular outline of 
it becomes compressed ; and between the position in 
which you look down on it, seeing its outline as a circle, 
and the position in which you look across it, seeing noth- 
ing but its edge, there are thus developed an infinite 
series of intermediate outlines, which, as they approach 
the circle, resemble that of an egg, and as they approach 
the straight line, that of a rolling-pin ; but wliicli are 
all accurately drawn curves, called by mathematicians 
' ellipses,' or curves that ' leave out ' something ; in this 



30 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

first practice yoii see tliey leave out some space of the 
circle tliey are derived from. 

9. ]^ow, as you can draw the circle with compasses, so 
you can draw any ellipse with a bit of thread and two 
pins/"* But as you cannot stick your picture over with 
pins, nor find out, for any given ellipse, without a long 
mathematical operation, where the pins should go, or 
how long the thread should be, there is now no escape 
for you from the necessity of drawing the flattened shape 
of the sixpence with free hand. 

10. And, therefore, that we may have a little more 
freedom for it, we will take a larger, more generally at- 
tainable, and more reverendly classic coin ; namely, the 
' Soldo,' or solid thing, from whose Italian name, heroes 
who fight for pay were first called Soldiers, or, in 
English, Pennyworth-men. Curiously, on taking one by 
chance out of my pocket, it proves to be a Double 
Obolus (Charon's fare ! — and back again, let us hope), or 
Ten Mites, of which two make a Five-thing. Inscribed 
to that efibct on one side — 

JinEOAON 

10 

AEUTA 

while the other bears an Q^gj not quite so curly in the 
hair as an ancient Herakles, written around thus, — 

rEnprio:^ a 

BASIAET2 TflN EAAHNHN 

I lay this on a sheet of white paper on the table ; and, 

* No method of drawing it by points will give a finely continuous 
line, until the hand is free in passing through the points. 



lY. FIRST EXERCISE IN CURVES. 31 

the image and superscription being, for our perspective 
purposes, just now indifferent, I will suppose you have 
similarly placed a ^^enny before you for contemplation. 

11. Take next a sheet of moderately thick note-paper, 
and folding down a piece of it sharply, cut out of the 
folded edge a small flat arch, which, when you open the 
sheet, will give you an oval aperture, somewhat smaller 
than the penny. 

Holding the paper with this opening in it upright, 
adjust the opening to some given point of sight, so that 
you see the penny exactly through it. You can trim the 
cut edge till it flts exactly, and you will then see the 
penny apparently painted on the paper between you and 
it, on a smaller scale. 

If you make the opening no larger than a grain of oats, 
and hold the paper near you, and the penny two or three 
feet back, you will get a charming little image of it, very 
2:>retty and quaint to behold ; and by cutting apertures of 
different sizes, you will convince yourself tliat you don't 
see the penny of any given size, but that you judge of its 
actual size by guessing at its distance, the real image on 
the retina of the eye being far smaller than the smallest 
hole you can cut in the paper 

12. N^ow if, su2:)po3ing you already have some skill in 
j)ainting, you try to produce an image of the penny which 
shall look exactly like it, seen through any of these open- 
ings, beside the opening, you will soon feel how absurd 
it is to make the opening small, since it is impossible to 
draw with flneness enough quite to imitate the image 
seen through any of these diminished apertures. But if 
you cut the opening only a hair's-breadth less wide than 
the coin, you may arrange the paper close to it by put- 



82 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

ting the card and penny on. the edge of a hook, and then 
pamt tlie simple image of what you see (penny only, 
mind, not the cast shadow of it), so that you can't tell the 
one from the other ; and that will be right, if your only 
object is to paint the penny. It will be right also for a 
flower, or a fruit, or a feather, or aught else which you 
are observing simply for its own sake. 

13. But it will be natural-history painting, not great 
painter's painting. A great painter cares only to paint 
his penny while the steward gives it to the laborer, or his 
twopence while the Good Samaritan gives it to the host. 
And then it mnst be so painted as you would see it at 
the distance where you can also see the Samaritan. 

14. Perfectly, however, at that distance. Not sketched 
or slurred, in order to bring out the solid Samaritan in 
relief from the aerial twopence. 

And by being ^ perfectly ' painted at that distance, I 
mean, as it would be seen by the human eye in the per- 
fect power of youth. That forever indescribable instru- 
ment, aidless, is the proper means of sight, and test of all 
laws of work which bear upon aspect of things for human 
beings. 

15. Having got thus much of general principle defined, 
we return to our own immediate business, now simplified 
by having ascertained that our elliptic outline is to be of 
the width of the penny proper, within a hair's-breadth, so 
that, practically, we may take accurate measure of the 
diameter, and on that diameter practise drawing ellipses 
of difierent degrees of fatness. If you have a master to 
help yon, and see that they are well drawn, I need not 
give you farther direction at this stage ; but if not, and 
we are to go on by ourselves, Ave i^iust have some more 



IV. FIRST EXERCISE IN" CURVES. 33 

compass Avork ; which reserving for next chapter, I will 
conclude this one with a few words to more advanced stu- 
dents on tbe use of outline in study from nature. 

16. I. Lead, or silver point, outline. 

It is the only one capable of perfection, and the best of 
all means for gaining intellectual knowledge of form. 
Of the degrees in which shade may be wisely united with 
it, the drawings of the figure in the early Florentine 
schools give every possible example : but the severe 
method of engraved outline used on Etruscan metal-work 
is the standard appointed by the laws of Fesoie. The 
finest application of such method may be seen in the 
Florentine engravings, of w^hich more or less perfect fac- 
similes are given in my 'Ariadne Florentina.' Raphael's 
silver point outline, for the figure, and Turner's lead out- 
line in landscape, are beyond all rivalry in abstract of 
graceful and essential fact. Of Turner's lead outlines, 
examples enough exist in the ^N^ational Gallery to supply 
all the schools in England, when they are prouerly 
distributed.* 

IT. II. Pen, or woodcut, outline. The best means of 
primal study of composition, and* for giving vigorous 
imj^ression to simple spectators. The vi^oodcuts of almost 
any Italian books towards 1500, most of Durer's (a), — all 
Holbein's; but especially those of the 'Dance of Death' 

* My kind friend Mr. Burton is now so fast bringing all things under 
liis control into good working order at the National Gallery, that I 
have good hope, by the help of his influence with the Trustees, such 
distribution may be soon effected. 



(a) I have put the complete series of the life of the Virgin in the St. 
George's Museum. Sheffield. 



34: THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

(5), and tlio etchings by Turner himself in the * Liber 
Studiorum,' are standards of it (c). With a L'ght wash 
of thin color above, it is the noblest method of intellectual 
study of composition ; so employed by all the great Flor- 
entine draughtsmen, and by Mantegna (d). Holbein and 
Turner carry the method forward into full chiaroscuro ; 
so also Sir Joshua in his first sketches of pictures {e). 

18. III. Outline with the pencil. Much as I have 
worked on illuminated manuscripts, I have never yet been 
able to distinguish, clearly, pencilled outlines from the 
penned rubrics. But I shall gradually give large exam- 
ples from thirteenth century work which will be for 
beginners to copy with the pen, and for advanced pupils 
to follow with the pencil. 

19. The following notes, from the close of one of my 
Oxford lectures on landscape, contain the greater part of 
what it is necessary farther to say to advanced students^ 
on this subject 

* I find this book terribly difficult to arrange ; for if I did it quite 
riglitly, I should make the exercises and instructions progressive and 
consecutive ; but then, nobody would see the reason for them till we 
came to the end ; and I am so encumbered with other work that I think 
it best now to get this done in the way likeliest to make each part 
immediately useful. Otherwise, this chapter should have been all 
about right lines only, and then we should have had one oil the arrange- 
ment of right lines, followed by curves, and arrangement of curves. 



(&) First edition, also in Sheffield Museum, 

(c) 'iEsacus and Hesperie,' and 'The Falls of the Reuss,' in Sheffield 
Museum. 

{d) 'The Triumph of Joseph.' Florentine drawing in Sheffield 
Museum. 

(e) Two, in Sheffield Museum. 



IV. FIRST EXERCISE IN" CURVES. 35 

When forms, as of trees or mountain edges, are so 
complex that you cannot follow them in detail, you are 
to enclose tlieni with a careful outside limit, taking in 
their main masses. Suppose you have a map to draw on 
a small scale, the kind of outline which a good geographi- 
cal draughtsman gives to the generalized capes and bays 
of a country, is that by w^hich you are to define too 
complex masses in landscapes. 

An outline thus perfectly made, with absolute decision, 
and with a wash of one color above it, is the most mas- 
terly of all methods of light and shade study, with limited 
time, when the forms of the objects to be drawn are clear 
and unaffected by mist. 

But without any wash of color, such an outline is the 
most valuable of all means of obtaining such memoranda 
of any scene as may explain to another person, or record 
for yourself, what is most important in its features ; only 
when it is thus used, some modifi-cation is admitted in its 
treatment, and always some slight addition of shade 
becomes necessary in order that the outline may contain 
the utmost information possible. Into this cj^uestion of 
added shade I shall proceed hereafter. 

20. For the sum of present conclusions : observe that 
in all drawings in wliich flat washes of color are associated 
with outline, the first great point is entirely to suppress 
the influences of impatience and affectation, so that if you 
fail, you may know exactly in what the failure consists. 
Be sure that you spread your color as steadily as if you 
were painting a house wall, filling in every spot of white 
to the extremest corner, and removing every grain of 
superfluous color in nooks and along edges. Then when 
the tint is dry, you will be able to say that it is either too 



36 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

warm or cold, paler or darker tlian you meant it to be. 
It cannot possibly come quite right till you lia^^e long 
experience ; only, let there be no doubt in your mind as 
to the point in which it is wrong; and next time you 
will do better. 

21. I cannot too strongly, or too often, warn you 
against the perils of affectation. Sometimes color light- 
ly broken, or boldly dashed, will produce a far better 
instant effect than a quietly laid tint; and it looks so 
dexterous, or so powerful, or so fortunate, that you are 
sure to find everybody liking your work better for its in- 
solence. But never allow yourself in such things. Efface 
at once a happy accident — let nothing divert you from 
the purpose you began with — nothing divert or confuse 
you in the course of its attainment ; let the utmost strength 
of vour work be in its continence, and the crowninsr 
grace of it in serenity. 

And even when you know that time will not permit 
you to finish, do a little piece of your drawing rightly, 
rather than the whole falsely : and let the non-completion 
consist either in that part of the paper is left white, or 
that only a foundation has been laid up to a certain 
point, and the second colors have not gone on. Let 
}■ our work be a good outline — or part of one ; a good 
first tint — or part of one; but not, in any sense, a sketch ; 
in no point, or measure, fluttered, neglected, or experi- 
mental. In this manner you will never be in a state of 
weak exultation at an undeserved triumph ; neither will 
you be mortified by an inexplicable failure. From the 
beginning you will know that more than moderate succe~ss 
is impossible, and that when you fall short of that due 
degree, the reason may be ascertained, and a lesson learned. 



IV. FIRST EXERCISE IN CURVES. 37 

As far as my own experience readies, tlie greater part of 
the fatigue of drawing consists in doubt or disappoint- 
ment, not in actual effort or reasonable application of 
tliouglit ; and the best counsels I have to give you may 
be summed in these — to be constant to your tirst purpose, 
content with the skill you are sure of commanding, and 
desirous only of the praises which belong to patience and 
discretion. 



CHAPTER Y. 

OF ELEMENTARY EOEM. 

1. In tlie 15tli paragrapli of the preceding cliapter, 
we were obliged to leave the drawing of our ellipse till 
we had done some more compass work. For, indeed, all 
curves of subtle nature must be at first drawn through , 
such a series of points as may accurately define them ; 
and afterwards without points, by the free hand. 

And it is better in first practice to make these points 
for definition very distinct and large; and even some- 
times to consider them rather as beads strung upon the 
line, as if it were a thread, than as mere points through 
which it passes. 

2. It is wise to do this, not only in order that the points 
themselves may be easily and unmistakably set, but because 
all beautiful lines are beautiful, or delightful to sight, in 
showing the directions in which matericd things may he 
%oisely arranged^ or may sermcedbly move. Tlius, in 
Plate 1, the curve which terminates the hen's feather 
pleases me, and ought to please yoii^ better than the 
point of the shield, partly because it expresses such rela- 
tion between the lengths of the filaments of the plume as 
may fit the feather to act best upon the air, for flight ; or, 
in unison with other such softly inlaid armor, for cover- 
ing. 

3. The first order of arranoement in substance is that 



V. OF ELEMENTARY FORM. 39 

of coherence into a globe ; as in a drop of water, in rain, 
and dew, — or, liollow, in a bubble : and this same kind of 
coherence takes place gradually in solid matter, forming 
spherical knots, or crystallizations. Whether in dew, foam, 
or any other minutely beaded structure, the simple form 
is always pleasant to the human mind; and the ^ pearl ' — 
to which the most precious object of human pursuit is 
likened by its w^isest guide — derives its delightfulness 
merely from its being of this perfect form, constructed of 
a substance of lovely color, 

4. Then the second orders of arrangement are those in 
^ which several beads or globes are associated in groups 

I under definite laws, of which of course the simplest is 
fto that they should set themselves together as close as pos- 
^ sible. 

Take, therefore, eight marbles or beads''^ about three 
quarters of an inch in diameter ; and place successively 
two, three, four, etc., as near as they will go. You can 
but let the first two touch, but the three will form a tri- 
angular group, the four a square one, and so on, up to the 
octagon. These are the first general types of all crystalline 
or inorganic grouping : you must know their properties 
well ; and therefore you must draw them neatly. 

5. Draw first the line an inch long, which you have 
already practised, and set upon it ^vg dots, two large and 
three small, dividing it into quarter inches, — A B, Plate 
3. Then from the laro-e dots as centres, throuirh the 
small ones, draw the two circles touching each other, as 
at C. 

* 111 St. George's schools, tliey are to be of pale rose-colored or 
amber-colored quartz, with the prettiest veins I can find it bearing : 
there are any quantity of tons of rich stone ready for us, waste ou our 
beaches. 



40 THE LAWS OF FESOLE. 

The triangle, equal-sided, eacli side half an inch, and 
the square, in the same dimensions, with their dots, and 
their groups of circles, are given in succession in the 
plate ; and you will proceed to draw the pentagon, hexa- 
gon, heptagon, and octagon group, in the same manner, 
all of them half an inch in the side. All to be done with 
the lead, free hand, corrected by test of compasses till 
you get them moderately right, and finally drawn over 
the lead with common steel pen and ink. 

The degree of patience with which you repeat, to per- 
fection, this very tedious exercise, will be a wholesome 
measure of your resolution and general moral temper, and 
the exercise itself a discipline at once of temper and hand. 
On the other hand, to do it hurriedly or inattentively is 
of no use whatever, either to mind or hand. 

6. While you are persevering in this exercise, you must 
also construct the same figures with your instruments, as 
delicately as you can ; but complete them, as in Plate 4, 
by drawing semicircles on the sides of each rectilinear 
figure ; and, with the same radius, the portions of circles 
which will include the angles of the same figures, placed 
in a ^^arallel series, enclosing each figure finally in a circle. 

7. You have thus the first two leading groups of what 
architects call Foils ; i.e.^ trefoils, quatrefoils, cinquefoils, 
etc., their French names indicatino: the original domin- 
ance of French design in their architectural use. 

The entire figures may be best called * Roses,' the 
word rose, or rq^e window, being applied by the French 
to the richest groups of them. And you are to call the 
point which is the centre of each entire figure the ^ Rose- 
centre.' The arcs, you are to call * foils;' the centres 
of the arcs, ' foil-centres ;' and the small points where 
the arcs meet, ' cusps,' from cuspis, Latin for a point. 



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